Time Won't Let Me Go
by Laudine
Summary: Companion to "Pandora's Box." After the return from Alkali Lake, Charles and Isabel work with Logan to unlock his lost memories. It will lead them to the lab of Nathaniel Essex and the discovery of a cryogenically frozen Cajun. Chapter 6 now up.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own "X-Men," but Isabel Sayre/Sylphide is mine.**

**Time Won't Let Me Go**

**Part One**

He told her once that she was so beautiful that it hurt to look at her. She laughed nervously and said, "And how many other women have you said that to?"

"None." His reply was honest. He wasn't one for tenderness, mushy romance that the girls gushed about in _Twilight_ or Jane Austen. He wasn't going to quote Lord Byron to her like Hank McCoy did to Ororo Munroe and he wasn't going to kiss her in the middle of the cafeteria and ask her out with the students pressuring her to say yes.

"I'm not ready for a relationship right now anyway," she said succinctly when he told her this. "And if you think I just want you to fuck my brains out, I'm not like that, either."

"So what are you then?"

"I'm what's called a serial monogamist."

He could have laughed at this. She, like Jean, most likely knew what he wanted to do to her, only she had perhaps seen it in a different way, being an intuitive instead of a telepath.

But still he went into her room nights when he couldn't sleep, nights when she didn't go out, or if she did, he would catch her on the way in. Her room itself bespoke elegance with a silvery wrought iron bedstead and a deep blue comforter. It was like stepping into another world, a world he had seen years ago but could not remember. He could pick up the scents from her aromatherapy pillow spray and the collection of glass perfume bottles littering her dresser top, from today's dirty clothes usually puddled on the floor where she had left them and the bathroom itself, an enclave of old-school femininity that he found intimidating. He found it amusing that she still used cold cream to remove her makeup before washing her face at night. Strangely, he didn't notice the smell that was supposed to put him off anymore, the age-old defense the Fae had used against wild animals, that sickly sweet smell. He would lie on the deep blue couch that she had reupholstered herself and talk to her; sometimes he would fall asleep in there, and he blamed that damn pillow spray. He knew that Isabel talked in her sleep, of mundane things, in both English and French, as she dreamed. But they weren't dreams in which she was stabbing people or confined and suffering terrible pain as his were; strangely, when he had them in this room, he found that the smell of lavender and whatever else it was in that spray and the softness of her voice calmed him and brought him back to reality.

Tonight he asked her about her childhood; Professor Xavier had mentioned something about her mother taking her to Brittany for whole summers, hiding her away in the Fae Half-Blood enclave in Brocéliande. Because her mother had known, her grandmother had known, and they would not let her be taken…

Isabel turned over in her bed and smiled at him sleepily. "How do you want to hear it? Like my mother told me, or how it was?"

He snickered. "A little bit of both."

She sat up and wrapped the blankets around her, leaning against her pillow. "Okay then," she said, "but keep in mind I'm not the best storyteller."

"Try me," he encouraged. "It doesn't take much to keep me entertained; I just wanna hear ya talk."

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_Isabel._

When I was very young, about eight or nine, my mother suddenly became very frightened, and she would not let me leave the house alone. I saw the man a few times when I would steal a glance outside of the window, and he would wave at me as he stood across the street watching us. My mother very angrily pulled me away from the window the last time it happened, and I remember her screaming at me in French—she insisted we speak it in the home so I didn't forget how—and she spanked me quite a few times. I've long forgiven my mother for it; now I know she was scared because this man was somehow a threat to me, a menace to her, and she made the call to my grandmother in France. The next morning there was a group of what my mother called distant cousins staying at her house, chaperoning us everywhere we went, taking me to school and ballet and cello lessons and my mother to work, all the while keeping wise, young-old eyes on the man.

Their stay lasted for some months, until school let out. Sometimes the man would be there, and sometimes he would be gone for weeks at a time. He was a very tall, very powerfully built man, with blond hair that he grew in muttonchops down the side of his face, and these yellow green cat eyes that sent shivers of dread up and down my spine. His nails were long for a man's, shaped like claws, and his nose was always wrinkled in disgust at something, some terrible smell. The smell was actually from my cousins, I found out, who emitted that sickly honey-sweet smell to assail his senses and to make him go away, which he eventually did.

Maman wasted no time in packing me up for France right after school let out, and I didn't stay with my grandmother in Saint-Malo for a few weeks, but spent time in the Fae Half-Blood enclave of Brocéliande. It's from these summer vacations in Brocéliande that I learned how to use my Faerie abilities. They activate and erupt just like mutant abilities, but can sometimes be more easily controlled if you're in Brocéliande or another enclave, and many times they can be brought forward through magic of some kind, a sort of ceremony under the full moon. This was when my intuition surfaced, and with it my mutation, and so when I was fourteen, my mother brought me to the Institute to train as a student.

Later I found out who the man was. Professor Xavier explained to me that it had been Victor Creed, and that he had abducted many other mutants for some man named Stryker to experiment on. He told me that I had been very lucky; my mother's foresight and my Fae relatives' protection had saved me from some terrible, unknown fate.

--------------

When they had returned from the mission in which they had lost Jean, Isabel had made a quick side trip to France to gather the rest of her things. A week later she was back in the swing of it, her beautiful mahogany hair freshly trimmed and layered with the long, sideswept bangs that caressed her right cheek. She had her artificial nails put back on and took over some of the classes that Storm had taught so Storm could fill in for Cyclops, while Kurt Wagner did his part, too. Dashing, blond, blue-eyed, and tanned Warren Worthington came to stay and help out as well, and Logan found himself watching carefully as Warren and Isabel traded ironic jibes back and forth.

"You're jealous," Isabel hissed at him from behind as she waited in line for him to use the coffeemaker the next morning.

"You must think you're quite the guy magnet, don't you?" he replied, turning around and filling her mug for her. She shook her head, smiling slightly.

"You think too highly of me." She poured herself some milk, making a café au lait. "I saw it in your aura. Dark muddy green—jealousy."

"Wow, you're something, aren't you, Miss Clever?" he retorted, and she turned around and laughed at him.

"_You_ just don't like competition. It's how ferals are," she replied, and he kicked himself for liking that smile which rounded out her cheeks even more and made her look girlish. "Not that I'd be that into you, anyhow."

She picked up her plate with her Greek omelette and two sausage links on it and went into the cafeteria to take a seat beside Professor Xavier.

His love for Jean cooled and became an afterthought months later.

-------------

The little boy named Artie had taken into wandering into Isabel's room when he had nightmares of the abduction and the confinement in the cells of the Alkali Lake base. Isabel tried to get him to go back to his own room, but it soon became apparent that the trauma was too deep, and that they would have to work with Professor Xavier to slowly wean him from taking that step. Isabel was the sort of woman who would have a good mother to the baby she had lost, and she had let the little boy sleep on the pullout couch in her room. Maybe it was because Isabel had begun to read to him out of her battered copy of Madame d'Aulnoy's fairy tales on the first night he ventured into her room after another nightmare.

Logan had been able to hear her through her door as he had paced the halls, wide awake from his own nightmares. His enhanced hearing could pick up on the musical cadence of her mezzo soprano voice, the Midwestern American accent slightly nasal at some points because she had spoken both French and English from the time she could talk.

"You can come in, you know," she called. "I know you're there!"

He damned her Fae intuition for that. But still he entered and sat on the couch, listening as she leaned against her pillows reading to Artie the tale of "Finette Cendron." To escape, even if it was momentarily, into a world where a girl only had to be beautiful, clever, and kind to find happiness, where magic helped and hindered, where good triumphed and evil failed, where princes were always handsome and charming. "You know the real world isn't like that," he said to her as she sent Artie to bed in the young boys' dorm.

"Of course I do," she asserted crossly, getting out of bed to put the book back in its shelf. "But it isn't all violence and hatred, either. There _are_ good things."

"You sound just like Wagner," he remarked with a derisive chuckle. She whirled around and jutted out a hip, putting her hand on it, allowing him a view of her graceful feminine curves through her pajama pants and three-quarter-sleeved t-shirt. She rolled her eyes and curled her lip.

"If you're such a cynic, then why are you here?" she asked him.

"It's not called being cynical, it's called being realistic. You don't actually believe in all that airy-fairy bullshit, do you?"

She arched an eyebrow at his choice of words.

"I take _that_ back. But you don't really believe that good always conquers evil and the pure-hearted are always victorious, do you?" he amended.

"Is anyone truly pure-hearted? Are _you_, for example, truly pure-hearted?" she quipped, sitting down on the edge of her bed, her indigo-hued eyes never leaving him. "You're not here because you want to be …necessarily. You're here because it's a place to stay and it's a home, something you've always wanted. Teaching just is part of the package."

He stood up, ready to defend herself. "Now just wait. I _do_ want to be here. I don't _mind_ teaching, because it helps these kids out. And from what Artie and I can tell you, these kids need to learn how to defend themselves. You see Scooter jumping up to teach this, or your boyfriend Blondie?"

Isabel shook her head, burying her head into her hand and laughing. "Warren isn't my boyfriend. I've known him since I first came here. He went to a few sorority formals and date parties with me, but that's the extent of it. But as to what you were saying, Mr. Thackeray," she digressed, "that's wonderful that you're here to do that. I should give you props for that, shouldn't I?"

"Warren isn't your boyfriend?" he repeated in disbelief.

"_No_, he isn't. God, I've been here for a month, and already my students are singing from the mountaintops that I'm single and playing matchmaker! I don't want to date _anybody_ right now! There's too much going on!" She sighed and returned her attention to him. "Look, I'm sorry," she said, scrubbing her hand across her face. "It's late. I have an early class tomorrow. I'm taking Ororo's history class while she teaches Scott's mutant ethics. God, I wish McCoy would hurry up and get here to lighten the load on the rest of us."

"McCoy?"

"Hank McCoy. Beast. I…You haven't met him, have you?" She rested her hand on her belly, a nervous move, he found out later. She stood up and went to turn on her white-noise machine, which sat on top of the taller dresser in the room, and she tilted her head, as though expecting his answer.

"No."

"Well, you'll like him very much," she said, smiling.

He stood up. "Like you said, early class. I should go." He turned to look at her once more, then ventured the question. "What color is it now?"

"What?" she queried, confused, her perfectly defined brows coming together for a split second. "Oh, your aura…"

"Yeah, that's it." He stepped forward to ostensibly give her a better look, but it was really to get a closer whiff of her. Underneath the honey-sweet smell, he could pick up Dove soap and a rose-scented perfume, and she laughed and shook her head.

"You're such a scammer." She stepped back from him. "Orange. You're confident—overly so. And the perfume is l'Occitane Rose 4 Reines. And _you_ were just leaving."

She gracefully conducted him out of her bedroom with a soft good night, and he didn't know what to make of her. She was nothing like Jean Grey—nothing at all. There was more of a playfulness to her, a slightly impish nature that crept out no matter how she tried to hide it. She was flirting with him, but then she and Warren flirted back and forth too as a kind of joke. She might not want a relationship right now, but she sure as hell liked the male attention.

-----------

Hank McCoy arrived after Thanksgiving, which had been a rather gloomy affair since Jean wasn't there to oversee the cooking. The students who remained were treated to a store-bought turkey or three, and Storm mashed some potatoes while Isabel followed the instructions on the Campbell soup label for green bean casserole. Kurt and Isabel went to the little French bakery the next town over and came back with all sorts of pies and pastries, and Rogue tried her hand at Jello pretzel salad, which actually turned out pretty well. Cranberry sauce out of the can, gravy out of the package, baked apples with cinnamon, some recipe for cheesy potatoes Storm picked up off the Internet, a fruit salad made from frozen fruit, Caesar salad out of the bag, and green beans amandine courtesy of Isabel, the only thing she could apparently cook. There were rolls and baguette aplenty, and Isabel popped the cork to a lovely white vin de table and secretly let Rogue have a glass.

Scott seemed more glum than usual and remained quiet during the whole day, sipping at something out of a flask which smelled like whiskey. Bobby Drake noticed it, too, but said nothing, instead keeping his attention on the football games with Rogue at his side. Warren came by later in the day with a bottle of some expensive white for the Professor and a Beaujolais for Isabel.

"Happy Thanksgiving, Logan!" he exclaimed, clinking his Heineken against Logan's Molson. "So did Bells cook?"

"I cooked, Warren!" Isabel called from the foyer where she was joining the rest of the students in their _Star Wars _marathon. "Green beans amandine!"

"It was really good, too," Bobby defended as he picked up Rogue's empty can of Coke to get her a new one. "And Rogue's Jello pretzel salad was a hit!"

"Sorry there's none left," Rogue said abashedly, her pretty dark eyes showing that she was quite sincere. "But there's apple pie. Ah can get you some…"

"Sure," Warren said. He sat down beside Scott and turned to him. "How's it going?"

Scott's lip curled as he faced Warren. "How's it going? _How's it going?_ Jean just died no less than a few months ago and you have the nerve to ask me how's it going like everything's the same?" He sprang up and grasped the sleeve of Warren's designer sweater. "Things _aren't_ the same, or am I the only one who sees that?"  
Rogue nearly dropped the apple pie à la mode she had gotten for Warren as she stopped in the foyer. Jubilation Lee came out of the students' rec room and into the den to see what was going on, but Isabel caught her by the shoulder and sent her back to the rec room as she followed her into the foyer. Logan could hear Storm tell the younger students not to pay any attention as Professor Xavier wheeled his way into the room.

"Calm down, Scott," he ordered, and then he held out his hand. "Give me the flask."

Scott scowled and dug into his pocket, handing the Professor his flask. Warren excused himself and joined Rogue and Bobby in the kitchen to have his apple pie, and Scott sat down in the chair. "Sorry," he mumbled.

"There was no reason for it," Professor Xavier countered. "We're all struggling with this, just as you are, but we know that there are people counting on us." He gestured to the blissfully unaware students in the rec room watching Luke Skywalker in his first battle with Darth Vader, and then he sighed. "I think you need more help than you believe Scott. Perhaps when Hank arrives next week…"

"I don't need anything," Scott snapped back.

Professor Xavier nodded. "Very well then, if you believe so. But keep in mind that there are people here who care deeply about you and are always willing to talk."

Scott nodded infinitesimally, and when Professor Xavier left, he turned to Logan. "If you think I'm talking to you about _her_, you're fuckin' insane."

Logan snorted. "I never said I was one of the people you could come to, pal."

"Right. Because you've moved on. Fresh meat."

"What're you angling at?"

"You know what I'm angling at. Five-two, blue eyes, a body to die for. Brunette." He turned his face back to the rec room. "Divorced."

"Fuck you, Summers," Logan spat out, springing up. The backs of his hands stung as the points of his claws pierced the skin just slightly. "I ain't gonna fight with you over something like that…over her! Leave her alone! Leave _me_ alone!"

"Sure, Logan," Scott drawled. "Walk away. Just leave. Like you do with everything. Because that's what you do best."

He whirled around, ready to jump Scott. "Logan!" Storm exclaimed, and he felt her hand on his shoulder. Her presence and her objectivity calmed him, and he joined Storm and the others in the rec room to finish _Return of the Jedi_ while Scott moped in front of the football game, alone.

-----------

Kurt and Isabel were practicing fencing and using their powers in combat in the Danger Room with Hank McCoy overseeing from the control room above. Kurt's teleportation ability and Isabel's affinity to air made them not only good for recon, but formidable in hand-to-hand combat. Their movements were swift and calculated, and with Storm conjuring a fog or a rain as a cover, there was much that they could do.

"It's a pity we didn't recruit Kurt sooner," Hank was saying. "He's quite an asset, and he and Rogue seem to have become close. He's starting to show her how to better defend herself."

Logan chuckled, remembering the wide-eyed Southern magnolia he had picked up in snowy Canada over a year ago. She was now growing up, maturing, coming into her own. But there was still that small part of her that would always remain that lost little girl, that pale little face in the icy forest with those sad dark eyes gazing up at him in hope…

The program ended and it was now the students' turn—Rogue, Piotr, Kitty, Bobby, Jubilee, and Sam. A senior class of six that he and Storm had been training to become future X-Men, and now this was one of their solo practice sessions. He heard the door open, and he thought it might be Storm, but then he turned around to see a perspiring, panting Isabel standing there with her foil lifted to her shoulder. Hank, surprised, greeted her, and she acknowledged him but then turned her attention to Logan.

"I need to talk to you. After dinner," she said succinctly.

"About what?" he asked her, watching his students out of the corner of his eye.

"You _know_ what," she asserted, and she turned away with a small wave to Hank McCoy.

-------------

He met her in the garage so they would have some privacy and where he could at least smoke. She sat on the hood of her black Mercury Mariner wearing her charcoal-colored wool peacoat against the cold December air. He lit his cigar and she made a face. "You wanted to talk, Bells?"

She nodded, biting a rosily glossed lip and glancing away from him, brushing her bangs behind her ear.

"Well, I'm waiting. You're freezing your ass off. So talk."

She returned her gaze to him, and she blew out air in a very French huff and declared, "You've got to stop coming into my room at night. People are talking."

He snickered. "What, so they're talking? Let 'em talk. I don't care what they say."

"Well, I do."

This surprised him. He took a step toward her and sat down on the hood of her SUV beside her. "I thought you wanted to ask me out. But here you are telling me off."

She shook her head, breathing out through her delicate, rétroussé nose. "It's not like that…really, it's not. I've…_seen_ things, Logan, when you're in my room and you fall asleep and you dream. It seeps into my subconscious. I've had to go to Professor Xavier about it because I've been getting migraines. Hank gave me stuff for it…"

"So Hank knows about this too, then?" Logan interrupted, his hackles rising. He didn't trust doctors…

"Hank is the soul of discretion. He was there for my D-and-C after I lost the baby." She turned to look at him. "He told me to divorce Kyle and to leave while the leaving was good."

"I didn't know," Logan murmured. God, he was such a chump. First Jean and then Isabel…

"Warren hired one of his lawyers for me to handle the divorce. That's how Kyle didn't get any of my money, because he cheated. I was the youngest for a long time. They all look out for me like I'm their baby sister."

"You and Warren…" Logan began.

"Warren went to my prom with me, and some sorority stuff when I was in college. We kissed a few times, but that's it. I met Kyle when I was twenty, and it was all him from there." She shivered and he put an arm around her to share his body heat. She stiffened, but then relaxed. "You're so warm…"

"Healing factor."

"Lucky. I just have some physical resilience." She flashed a pretty smile. "Being part Fae has its advantages."

He drew her closer. "Like repelling Sabertooth?"

"Yes, that," she acknowledged, ironically. She turned to face him. "Logan, I—I like you. A lot. And I want to help you. But I'm _so_ not ready to date yet. It's just so overwhelming…" She shuddered. "But you can't come into my room like you do anymore…unless I invite you. Deal?"

"Deal."

"Good." She exhaled in relief. "So finish your cigar. Professor Xavier just gave me unlimited access to his files, and Warren is trying to locate some things, and my grandmother…"

"Your grandmother?" Logan prompted.

"My grandmother is a very powerful intuitive," Isabel told him. "My mother was just a precognitive…That was how she knew about Sabertooth and the abductions."

"Do ya still see the ghost?"

"Azaliz?" Isabel shivered. "Sometimes. She's crossed over, but she just visits in dreams. But not lately, with your memories clogging my mind with visions," she added, laughing. "Still…So what do you think of France for spring break? Say you'll come!"

"France?"

"Rogue can come, too. My cousin Sylvie is her age and is dying to meet her. And…in France it's different with mutants. But in Europe it's been a little different since the Pope, the Church of England, and the Greek Orthodox Church came out in support of mutants. I wish they'd be the same way about gay marriage and women as priests," Isabel said, frowning. "The Catholic Church, I mean. But…Here I am, rambling."

He grinned. "I like hearing you talk, like I said before."

"Maman always said I sounded like Audrey Hepburn in _Breakfast at Tiffany's_. Holly Golightly, talking and talking and talking…" She grew serious now, her tone becoming somber. "Do you _want _me to help you? Do you want to go through those files?"

He stubbed out the cigar on the concrete floor of the garage, then bent to pick it up when she folded her arms across her chest and tapped her foot. He stared down at her, and he could see the slight silver glow that emanated from her in the half-light of the garage. He knew she could see his aura and wondered if she could get an idea of what he was thinking. "What're you doing tonight?"

"Nothing." She forced the word out expectantly, impatiently, because somehow he sensed that she could think of a thousand better things to do than sit here awaiting his decision. "I cleared my weekend out for you," she explained. "I just have some Friday-reading essays to grade. And I can do that on Sunday during football. I can get a bottle of Pinot Noir from downstairs and meet you in the War Room."

Pinot Noir. So did this give him the excuse to bring out a six-pack of Molson?

"What time?" he asked her, and she made a face at the cigar smell coming from him.

She contemplated for a moment. "At eight. I have to proofread Kitty's and Jubilee's papers for them for Hank's class. With Jubilee, it's going to take awhile. She writes in text language."

He grimaced. Text language drove him crazy, too. Isabel hardly used her text on her phone, he noticed, and when she did, it wasn't in the absurd abbreviations he had seen some of the students use when they used instant messenger or stuff like that.

He threw the remainder of the cigar into the trash bucket close to the garage door and followed her into the house and into the kitchen. He could hear the television blaring from the students' rec room—wrestling, it sounded like. And then Ororo was in the adults' rec room in the next hall with Hank, watching some sappy black-and-white movie with Bette Davis. "_Now, Voyager_," Isabel murmured. "Did you know the woman who wrote the original novel was a patron of Sylvia Plath's? She was the basis for Olive Higgins Prouty in _The Bell Jar_."

"Never read _The Bell Jar_." It was a very nice view, indeed, of Isabel's derrière, but then she turned to face him with sparkling eyes and a crooked smile playing on her lips.

"Are you a reader, Logan?" she purred suddenly. There, ladies and gentlemen, take a look: Bells Sayre was being a flirt.

"Sometimes. When I was traveling alone in Canada, there wasn't much else to do," he said to her, stepping a little closer, getting a closer hint of the Roses 4 Reines.

"What do you like?" she asked him. He could imagine her asking him what he liked in a completely different, much more private setting, but then she had made it perfectly clear that _that_ wasn't going to happen for awhile.

"I haven't thought about it much," he answered, and her forehead puckered a bit, and she was considering.

"Do you like Hemingway?" she queried.

"He's okay. Read a lot of him." Somehow because some of the books sparked memories of a war he might have fought a long time ago. As did _All Quiet on the Western Front_. As did _The Red Badge of Courage_. And _The Things They Carried_.

She listened carefully as he ticked those books off of his list. And then a smile spread across her face. "I _do_ know what you might like," she said to him. "It's French literature—translated into English, of course—but I used it for my European lit class."

She stepped back, nearly bumping into Bobby and Rogue as they made their way down the stairs, and Rogue was suppressing a grin as Isabel called out, "Eight o'clock, War Room. And it's BYOB."

"You and Ms. Sayre?" Rogue asked him, curiosity lighting up her face. "When did all this happen?"

"Nothing's happening," he corrected quickly, returning to his defensive stance and composing the features of his face into an impassive mask. "Professor Xavier wants her to help me with some stuff. She mentioned something about France, too…"

"Yeah," Bobby remembered, "she's taking those of us who can't go home during Easter break over to France for her for an immersion trip, she says. Jubes and Sam are coming, too, but since Jubes takes Spanish, she'll probably get to speak English so Ms. Sayre's cousins can practice. Or get a French boyfriend." Here he and Rogue began to laugh; Jubilee was still very young and boy-crazy, and from pictures she had seen, she had fallen in love with Isabel's cousin Cyril.

_My grandmother is a very powerful intuitive._

Christ. Jesus Christ.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

It seemed all too perfectly planned; on the surface it was him, not having anything better to do, helping to chaperone a group of juniors and seniors to France for educational purposes—no doubt they would be going to Paris—and to expose them to a different culture. But underneath, Isabel and her grandma…helping him…and he hadn't even been consulted about it…

He could kill Charles for it.

-----------

"I suggest you calm down before we discuss anything further," Charles said levelly, turning to face Logan as the feral mutant slumped into a chair with a scowl on his face. "The Brignonens are a good family—very discreet. They have something to hide, too, if you don't remember where Isabel had been before she returned to us."

"A good family?" Logan demanded. "So what have you 'good people'"—here he held up the index and middle fingers of each hand to signify quotation marks—"been planning for me behind my back without my say-so?"

"It was Isabel's idea," Charles answered smoothly, keeping his cool. That was what irked Logan so much about the old man—Wheels—because no matter how much of a ruckus Logan might make, the Professor always remained calm, in control of the situation, and no doubt Bells Sayre was giggling like Jubilation Lee up in her room knowing he had put two and two together.

Charles inhaled deeply, composing himself, and his voice grew cold, yet still retained that mesmerizing quality that made Logan forget his temper and stop to listen. "You've been bothering her for months, Logan, and she didn't mind, necessarily. She wants to help you. She…she has seen things, things that I was never even able to gather from your mind. Ever since her return, with her newfound intuitive powers, it has been a little difficult for her when it comes to dreams. We're working on it. But I know Véronique Brignonen, and she might be better able to help you regain some of your memories. If she can't, then she and Isabel know people who can."

"Fairies," Logan muttered in understanding.

"No. Fae." Charles smiled softly, and somehow Logan could see the humor despite his rage at not being privy to the situation. "Nonetheless," Charles continued, "be very careful with Isabel. Her first husband wasn't good to her. She might seem perfectly confident and poised, but she conceals much. She has never fully come to terms with the loss of her baby."

_Be careful. She's fragile. Don't break her._ Where had he heard that before? Oh yeah, with _Rogue_…

"I won't hurt her," Logan assured Charles. "But I think Isabel's a big girl who can take care of herself. Don't you?"

"She can," Charles acknowledged, wheeling his chair out of his office as Logan held the door open for him, "but I thought that I would warn you first. She's like a daughter to me, as many of my students are, and I won't see her hurt again."

"I don't think she'd _let_ me hurt her," Logan told Charles.

No, she wouldn't. Somehow he got the impression that she could hurt him more than he could ever hurt her, before he even got the chance to hurt her.

And neither one of them wanted things to get to that point.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I don't own the "X-Men," but Isabel Sayre/Sylphide is my own creation.**

**Author's Note: Thanks to everyone who has been actively reading and reviewing. To answer some questions that have popped up and may pop up, there will be some Romy romance, but much later in the story; Rogue needs to break up with Bobby and will go through much pain and heartache before meeting Remy. Emma Frost, for the purposes of this story, is not at all related to Kayla Silverfox, but Kayla's sister will still figure into this. And Jean will not be coming back…not yet, anyhow. Next two chapters: France and what will be the young X-Men's first venture into Brocéliande. And we will see Magneto again, but much more subdued than before.**

**Time Won't Let Me Go**

**Part Two**

Isabel had retrieved a bottle of Pinot Noir from the wine cellar and a wineglass from the kitchen and put one of her Beethoven CDs into the player. She had always listened to classical music when she did research or homework or anything close to it; somehow it helped her to concentrate and calmed her, especially if she adjusted the air molecules within so that the music would vibrate in her, chord after chord, which would set the air molecules that usually screamed to separate quiet.

She kicked off her sneakers and took off her socks, massaging her foot as she brought it up into the chair. She frowned over a bruise she had gotten earlier when she had accidentally stepped on one of her heeled shoes, a black-and-blue mark right on the soft bottom of her foot. She really had to try to keep things cleaner, but there were times when she was preoccupied and honestly would forget to put things away. Kitty had remarked on the three pairs of earrings and the necklace that she had just left on her dresser, thinking she would put each one away later as she took them off at night. But of course that didn't happen.

To be honest—when it came to her room, her space at least—she was a slob. She should really take tomorrow night and clean it.

She set Victor Hugo's _Les Misérables _down on the table beside the computer, and she opened up the Xavier Protocols using the user name and password that Charles had given her. She heard Logan come in, and he closed the door and she turned to glance at him. He picked up the book and flipped it over to read the teaser on the back. His dark eyes flicked back up to her and he put it back on the table. "I'll read it. Sounds interesting."

"It's very good. They did a miniseries of it in France a few years ago. Gerard Depardieu was Valjean and John Malkovich was Javert. I have it, if you want to see it."

He nodded and sat down beside her, taking a beer out of the package and opening it. She turned up her nose as he stretched the muscles in his neck and as she heard the sickening crack of the air leaving the metal-infused bones. "So what're we going to be looking up?"

"Anything you can remember." She thanked God she had remembered to wear a bra under her t-shirt; she wouldn't have been able to concentrate with him trying to get a peek to see whether or not her breasts were natural. "So? Should we start with Alkali Lake, or…?"

"Start with William Stryker and then go from there," Logan ordered gruffly. She typed the name into the small search engine, and before she pressed enter she turned to him.

"I'm going to do it."

"Then do it," he replied.

"You're not scared?"

"Do I look like it?"

She tilted her head. No, he was lying. Dark, muddy gray. "You_ are_ scared," she persisted. He shifted in his chair, a glare forming on his face, his stance turning defensive as he bared his teeth. Hesitantly she put her hand on his bare forearm, and he stiffened, and she could feel the muscles in his arm move beneath it, as though he were willing his claws to stay in their housings.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled, shaking her hand off of his arm and rising to go. "You shouldn't be involved in this. This is something I need to work out on my own."

She stood up and caught him by the wrist. "You don't have to."

He turned to her. "Don't have to what?"

"Go. Or work it out on your own."

He put down the beer bottle and ran his hand through his hair, inhaling and exhaling deeply. "You don't understand. This could hurt you. _I_ could hurt you. I'm sure you heard about what happened to Marie…"

"I know about it. But that was an accident. She had no way of knowing…I would have some way of knowing. A shimmer of a warning in the back of my mind, and then I would dissipate, so you see…"

"You're not listening!" he snapped out, plucking her wrist away from his arm. "Stryker and his men attacked this school and put those kids upstairs through hell. Why? Because of _me_. Because he knew I was here, and he thought it would be a golden opportunity to start playing science lab again. Jean died because of that, because of _me_…And he killed that woman, the woman with your face and your eyes and he would probably have killed you, too, if you had been here."

"Stryker is dead, Logan. Kaherdin cut his throat. And then he cut out Stryker's heart to be burned in Brocéliande so that Azaliz could cross." The words poured from her lips, and she knew she shouldn't be saying this, but somehow, for him, it would mean something, put something to rest. "They should have taken you; perhaps you would have gotten something out of the ceremony. But there's nothing that can be done now…"

He swore under his breath and sat back down, and then he pointed at the screen. "Press enter, Bells. Let's see what this brings up."

She did as he said, and they waited for the file to come up. She scrolled down the screen to the part marked "known contacts" and read through the names. Kenji Oyama, Abraham Cornelius, Colin Thorton, Nathaniel Essex. She turned to him to see if he recognized any of the names, but his brow was puckered in bewilderment. He didn't know any of them.

"I can tell you why else Stryker might have come here," Isabel said quietly, "but you can't tell anyone that I told you…not even the Professor, though he would be able to figure it out."

"Tell me."

She closed her eyes at the headache in her head, the one that whispered _Don't tell, don't tell, don't tell, don't tell_ and beat it against her temples. "Some of the original students here—teachers now—were imprisoned by him and experimented on. That's how the Professor founded the school; he could hear them calling out for help, and then he found them through Cerebro. When they were freed, he was there to take them away and bring them here…"

"Who was it?" Logan asked her, his second bottle of beer poised close to his mouth. Isabel pressed on, despite the warning in the back of her mind.

"You can't tell. You can't say a word, not even in a temper. If you do, it will be terrible. It could hurt a lot of people…"

"I won't say a word, Bells," he assured her, putting the bottle down and taking her hand into his own. "I promise you…"

She opened her eyes, and there was nothing but sincerity in his face. "Scott was one of them. He won't talk about it, but I always had a feeling that he was taken by the man who tried to take me. Maybe meeting you reminded him of something he wanted to forget."

"Maybe. And it probably didn't help that I was hitting on his girlfriend." He was quiet now, and his aura took on a soft blue light. Was he finally understanding, showing some compassion for Scott?

They were still. It was so still. She sipped at her wine, her first glass, and let him hold her hand. He was staring at her hand, at how small and slim it seemed compared to his, at her fingers, at the pale-pink-painted artificial nails that grew just beyond her fingertips, and then with the index finger of his other hand he began to trace the lines of her palm. His finger was rough compared to hers, the nails short, uneven, yet neat.

"I don't want to hurt you," he said, as though it were some kind of a confession. "I know you've been hurt, and I want to tell you I would never…" He sucked in his breath. "I want to know you. I want more than this…what's going on now."

Her eyes widened. What was this—what was he trying to accomplish? Touch…yes, touch was always important to ferals. Not only did it mark territory, but it conveyed meaning, and it was how they got to know people, through the senses…

She tried to process it in her mind. She was down here, in the War Room, holding the hand of some _very_ hot and no doubt _very_ skilled man who had wanted to bang her senseless a few short months ago. Caitlin would have been incredulous. _Are you that stupid? I would have taken him up on his offer and let him do me seven ways from Sunday._ But he seemed to want more, now, or so he said. He wasn't making any move, just touching her hand, and then he reached up to stroke her hair. But that was all he did. Nothing to overly put her on the offensive.

"Can I ask you about your baby?"

The baby. The sharp stab of pain through her gut rendered her breathless, and she screwed her eyes shut tight to quell the tears that gathered behind her eyelids and soon began to fall. She had told him the basics of the story, but she hadn't told him that she had found out what the gender would have been after she went to Brocéliande, that she'd had names picked out, and that she had bought some onesies and little things that she kept stored in the spare room of her condo in Chicago, that she had bought _The Velveteen Rabbit_ book with the stuffed animal, too, off of Amazon.

"Cry if you need to. Tell me. Get it out."

She opened her eyes and the tears streamed down her face, and she opened her mouth, but the only thing that came out was a choking sound. He got out of the chair and knelt down in front of her, and he pulled her close to him, and the sobs wracked her body as she buried her face into his shoulder, as one hand came to rest on his forearm and then the other on his opposite shoulder, and she wilted against him. He stroked her hair, and he said nothing about how her tears were soaking his shirt. She turned her face to the side when most of the tears had been cried out, the remaining few slipping languidly down her face as she answered his question.

"It would have been a little girl, and I had a name…"

"A name?"

"Veronica Susanne." Veronica was her middle name, after her grandmother, Véronique, yet she adored it anyhow and wanted to honor both her mother and grandmother with that name.

"It wasn't your fault," he told her, just as she had assured him earlier. "You couldn't have known it would happen…"

"No." She could feel the softness of his hair, of his long sideburns, and the stubble on his cheek against her forehead. And his smell…oh dear God, he smelled so good! Not of expensive cologne, but of leather and motor oil and cigars and beer and some masculine-scented body wash that wasn't Old Spice, thank God, but was absolutely divine…

This wasn't a cocky douchebag like Kyle or some handsome rich boy like Warren or even a J. Crew, all-American Scott Summers; this was Logan, gruff, mysterious, volatile, and yet strangely poetic and intoxicating. He was almost like a hero out of Byron, just not so refined…

"You think we should go upstairs?" he asked her, and she straightened and nodded. "They'll think we're having sex down here or something," he added.

"Very quiet sex," she replied, picking up her wineglass and downing the rest of it, then picking up the bottle. She took her CD out of the player and turned off the computer. They made their way to the elevator to the main levels, and Logan put the bottle of wine in the fridge for her while she took care of his empties and put her glass in the dishwasher.

She went outside to the deck and saw that he had lit a cigar, and that he was standing out there in those sweatpants and a white t-shirt without a coat. He turned to her and furrowed his brow. "You doing okay?"

"Better," she answered, and he took a step toward her, passing his hand over her hair again. What was this between them? It was difficult to define, yet somehow she felt a need to define it…

"I'm going to be up a little bit longer," he said suddenly, stepping back. "Gonna catch the rebroadcast of _Sports Center_ before I call it a night. You?"

"I'm going to bed, actually," she said quickly, not wanting to leave any opportunity open for him or for herself. "Thank you—for being there for me."

He took his cigar from his mouth, blew smoke, and grinned at her, showing two dazzling rows of perfect, straight white teeth, both sets of canines longer than usual. "No. Thank _you_—for wanting to help me."

And when she went to bed that night, she could not get that smile out of her head, the way the careworn face seemed to smooth itself of frown lines and light up, the way his eyes seemed to twinkle and the crinkles at the corners of them, the way he looked at her, as though she could make his crappy day better by just opening her mouth and saying something completely mundane.

------------

On Saturday, he went with her to the mall as she chaperoned Marie, Kitty, Jubilee, and Theresa for a day of shopping at Charlotte Russe, Forever 21, Express, Wet Seal, Gap, H&M, and Banana Republic. Isabel had always been an H&M girl herself, and while Logan waited in Express for Jubilee, Kitty, and Theresa, she and Marie spent time in there and in New York and Company. Dinner was at TGI Friday's, courtesy of Isabel's American Express card, and it seemed to Isabel as though Jubilee's observant blue eyes were trying to pick up on some small interaction between herself and Logan to analyze later.

He pulled the school van into its allotted spot after they returned, and as Isabel took her purchases from it, he waited, and then as he shut the door, he pressed his lips together. "Come walk with me," he said.

"What?" she echoed, and Marie paused at the door into the mansion as well, curiosity glimmering in her own eyes.

"Come walk with me. Can you and Kitty take her stuff, Marie?" he called, and Marie nodded.

"Sure. What time can Ah meet you about my thesis, Ms. Sayre?" Rogue asked her, as she took Isabel's bags from H&M and Express.

"Tomorrow, maybe? I'm going to ten o'clock Mass with Mr. Wagner, so after then. We can go for coffee. Would you like that?" Isabel answered, slinging her purse over her shoulder and buttoning her coat and adjusting her scarf.

"Coffee would be fine," Rogue answered, her eyes alighting on Logan, then on Isabel, then on Logan again. "Noon?"

"Noon." Which meant that Isabel might have to take her Friday-reading essays with her, or do them tonight, but it could be worse.

"You're helping her with her thesis?" Logan asked Isabel as they went to walk the snow-dusted grounds outside of the mansion. "Who assigned that?"

"Professor Xavier," Isabel responded, listening to the crunching sounds their feet made on the frost-hardened grass. "They have to do a senior thesis as part of their graduation."

"What'd you write about?"

She smiled at the thought. "The different extremes of how women are portrayed in medieval literature. They're either the Madonna or the whore."

"Deep."

"Oh, Ororo was all for it. I used _The Canterbury Tales_, some of Marie de France's lais, and _Aucassin et Nicolette_. Yes, Logan, I'm a nerd."

"What's Marie's topic?"

"False imprisonment and asylums in Gothic lit, particularly when it comes to women characters."

"What is this about women characters in lit?" he asked her, stopping to take her hands into his warm ones. "How they've got it so bad and all that stuff?"

She shrugged, a small up-and-down movement of her shoulders. He brushed her bangs back from her face, back behind her ear, and let his finger linger there. "You've got nice ears," he remarked. "In proportion to your head, free lobes…and they don't stick out…"

She laughed, brushing his hand away from the side of her head, and they continued to saunter down the path until they reached the Japanese garden, where the cherry trees, now devoid of leaves, blossoms, and fruit, framed the path, and where she could discern the neat rock sculptures under the snow. "You've been helping the younger students with science?"

"Just reading and stuff. Sometimes McCoy gets a little longwinded and the kids' eyes glaze over and they start to drool. But he's a good guy. He really cares." Logan dusted the snow off of the bench in close to the dormant fountain in the garden, and Isabel sat down on it beside him. "I never thought I'd trust a doctor, but he's all right."

Isabel turned her head sideways to glance at him, and she stretched her legs out in front of her, pointing her toes, or rather, the toes of her high-heeled boots. His face was grave, still, as though he were in some sort of deep contemplation, and his aura changed from his normal deep red to a soft yellow, and he curled his fingers tightly over the edge of the bench. He seemed to be on the verge of saying something, but what? Had he remembered something about his time before he had come to the Institute?

"Do you take the regular airplane to France, or something else?" he asked her, no doubt remembering how she had traveled from Brocéliande to Boston those few months ago.

She inclined her head. "Why? Do you not like the airlines?"

"It's the metal detectors. At Liberty Island…"

She laughed. "Ororo told me. I guess it was pretty funny."

"To her, and Scott laughed his ass off. But since after 9/11…me and airport security systems don't get along."

"We usually take the Blackbird to Muir Island, and then a private jet from that complex to the airport in Brittany," Isabel assured him. "Professor Xavier has already thought about it; it protects the students. And the Professor and I already discussed the metal detectors; we've found if I pack air densely enough around metal, it keeps the detector from picking it up. But we're not going to Paris, anyhow. It's too far away and there are too many to stay in my apartment there this time. Mémé has more than enough room for all of us."

He was still stuck on the metal detectors. "You tried that? You and Chuck?"

"There's a formula of some kind he came up with, too. Hank thought it was an absolute riot." Isabel shook her head. "I'm not a math person. At Empire State, I took Intro to Computer Use for my math credit. An easy four-point. At the time they had a very high failure rate in their math department, and for the liberal arts people, they had to have an alternative." Another Gallic shrug, and she shuffled her feet across the ground, sending snow scattering across it in all directions.

"You like this garden?" he asked her.

She scrunched up her nose and made a so-so gesture. "I prefer the English wildflower garden on the other side of the house. A Japanese garden may be pretty, but to be honest, I have no use for Japan."

"Too bad," Logan mumbled.

"And why is it too bad?" she demanded, her brow furrowing.

"I spent some time there, about seven or eight years ago. It…helped." He squinted at the bit of sunlight that peered through the gray clouds. "You seem so open-minded, I wouldn't have thought you hate the Japanese. Did Grandpa serve in the navy during World War II?"

"I don't _hate_ anybody," she contradicted. "Hating something and having no use for something are entirely too different things. I've just never had the desire to go there… Maybe my view of the world is overly Eurocentric, but then it's my view, and that's how it is…for now, until it changes."

She heard him laughing. She glanced at him and he was shaking his head, laughing at her. "Flamin' hell, I never thought you could be so shallow! Havin' no use for Japan…"

She felt a sudden rush of irritation, and she sprang up and hurriedly backtracked her way up to the house. "Hey!" he called. She heard him take to his feet, and he had to break into a jog to keep up with her. "C'mon, Bells, what was that for? You didn't have to just pick up and leave like that."

She stopped, then she turned to look at him over her shoulder. "It's cold," she said. "And it's getting dark. And I have to really grade those essays. I'll see you later, Logan."

------------

"He bothers you, Isa," Kurt commented as he parried Isabel's thrust. She grunted in frustration and dissipated when he feinted, and when she rematerialized she shook her head vehemently.

"He doesn't. He just…oh, he is just so _irritating_!" she exclaimed. Kurt disappeared in a puff of sulfur-laced black smoke and reappeared beside her, and the buzzer on his foil went off as he lunged and struck Isabel before she could block him. "You win!" she told him. "Best out of three…"

"Two out of three, ja. You're distracted, Isa. Vhy do you let him get to you?" Kurt persisted, ruffling Rahne Sinclair's chestnut head as she trilled out a Scottish-accented greeting in German.

Why did she let him get to her? Because he was a man who was insanely gorgeous despite his rugged appearance and who challenged something within her, her princessish behavior, Jean had called it. Because he had laughed at her. It was one thing if the Professor laughed at her, or Scott or anyone else, but not Logan, never Logan. She had always laughed at him and been slightly coquettish. And he had beaten her to laughing and trapped her in a corner. And she had hated it.

And to be honest, it had more to do with her ego, her sense of herself, than anything else. She had always been the one to have the upper hand, yet with Kyle that had not been the case. She was determined that she would never let anyone that far in again, never let anyone make her vulnerable again. But she'd been wrong, because into her life had marched Logan, devil-may-care, cocksure Logan. She'd thought it was a flirtation, and so she'd led him on a merry chase, careful to rebuff him when the timing was right, only to find that she really _had_ been _quite_ attracted to him after all.

And he still drove her mad.

"May I use yer foil, Ms. Sayre?" Rahne asked shyly, putting her hand on Isabel's forearm. Isabel was started out of her reverie, and she smiled sweetly down at Rahne and handed her the foil and the protective glasses she used during training with Kurt.

"Here, Rahne. Go ahead," Isabel encouraged. "And watch your stance. You should lunge a little more, and be surer about the blade hand. Show her, Kurt."

Kurt demonstrated the stance, and Rahne mimicked it. Isabel stepped forward to adjust Rahne's shoulders and showed her how to grip the foil, and when Rahne lunged and thrusted at Kurt's command, Isabel clapped her hands and let out a squeal of delight.

"Das ist gut, Rahne. Try again. No, Isa, don't show her zis time." Kurt held up his hand to stay her, and Isabel watched as Rahne parried and then blocked Kurt's thrust.

"Very good!" Isabel called, and Rahne turned to her with a smile.

"Herr Wagner has been teachin' some of us, Ms. Sayre," Rahne explained. "D'ye think I'd be good enough tae go to yer fencin' club and practice with ye?"

Isabel tilted her head, considering. "I'll let Herr Wagner be the judge of it, but you can come and practice with me…when you're ready."

And that would mean gear for Rahne. Isabel ticked off the figures in her head, and somehow it was exciting to her. A new member who could train with the senior class. They really should have her train with Logan, too…

Logan. There he crept up in her mind again, even when she had forgotten him for a few good minutes. She hated herself for this.

She told Rahne to drop the gear by her room when she was done, and then she wandered out of the second-level workout room and to her own room to shower. Some moments later she emerged from her room in her school-issue microfiber yoga pants and a long-sleeved t-shirt.

"Bells."

She turned, sighing internally in relief. "Scott."

"You free?" he asked her.

"I'm not up for going anywhere," she answered, indicating her damp hair.

He shrugged. "That's fine. The game's on. I need someone to watch the scores for Jean's old fantasy football team. You're one of the only ones I can tolerate right now."

"Why is that?" Isabel asked as she followed Scott down to the adults' rec room, where Bobby and Sam Guthrie had already situated themselves.

"Because you don't constantly ask me if I'm okay," he admitted.

She stopped at the landing of the stair. "Can I ask you if you are right now?"

He paused. His aura was not so gray; still, the black line remained closest to his body, albeit thinner. A bright lemon-yellow tinged the gray, though. He was trying so hard to keep everything together. _Poor Scott…_

He inhaled deeply, and then he smiled wanly. "I'm trying, Bells. I really am…"

"I know you are," she said quietly. "But if you need anything…"

"I know." He let her go downstairs ahead of him. "Do you remember when you were in high school still and we'd go into the city when you had half days, because Jean was studying and you and I were bored?"

She could remember. Those had been good days, when her mother had still been alive and she had been the cherished one, the pet, the baby. When she had been so coddled and so watched over by the Professor and her mother and her mother's family that she really had had no idea that being a mutant was so bad.

"I was such a brat then," she remembered, making a face.

"Not really. You were just young. We all were," he countered.

"And then we grew up," she murmured. And then…

_And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom._

And what else?

_Do not seek the because—in love there is no because, no reason, no explanation, no solutions._

She could almost thank Scott for her wake-up call.

-----------

After the football game was over, she darted upstairs and knocked on his door. He was there, in his room, smoking cigars on the balcony when he called for her to come in. She had never been in his room before, she realized, and looking around she noticed that he still had not settled in, that it still appeared that he might leave at any moment. Or maybe it was an intentional thing; if he found himself unhappy one day, he could just go, disappear into the night.

"Hey, Bells," he mumbled , not looking at her, a trail of blue smoke emitting from his mouth as he greeted her. "So is this it? You coming to fuck with me in the privacy of my own room? You're moving up in the world, darlin', becoming craftier. Someone could almost say you were a bitch."

"I can be sometimes," she confessed. "Just like you can be an asshole."

"Point taken." He watched her as she carefully stepped outside onto the balcony as well, as she inhaled the smoky smell of the late autumn night air and the smell of pine-tree resin from the grove below.

"I'm sorry about yesterday," she said at length, shivering, and he put down his cigar and drew her to him. "I'm not very good at this, since I was divorced. I want certain things, for the timing to be right, but then you came, and it was so unexpected…"

"Trust issues?"

"A lot of them."

"You can trust me, you know." His voice, so soft, was a rumble in his chest as her ear pressed against it. He was so warm… "I don't wanna hurt you, not on purpose, anyhow."

She was relieved. He bent to kiss her, and she let him, and he was _amazing_. She was on fire, glowing in the moonlight, as though she shone with it from deep within her. She sighed aloud as he kissed her eyelids, her cheeks, and then her lips. She let him lead her inside, and he chafed her hands as she sat in the chair in front of the desk. She passed a hand over his hair, dark and unruly and determined to grow into those two crests at either side of his head even though he tried to keep it tame when he was here at the school. And then she laughed, and he glanced up at her with eyebrows furrowed in curiosity.

"Do you remember when Jean said you were the bad boy, the type that girls don't bring home?" Isabel giggled.

"Yeah…" His face was suspicious, as though he thought she was going to say something cutting.

"And you said you could be the good guy…"

"And the point?"

"Well, I want to take you home to France, so that must mean something."

He grinned. "Yeah, it does. It means that to you, I _can _be the good guy."

"Silly!" she whispered. "You already are!"

-----------

The semester drew to an end, and Christmas approached. Isabel got her shopping done early, and she helped Ororo and Hank with the preparations for the Christmas festivities. Caitlin called her about the dog then.

She knew someone who knew someone who bred Pomeranians, and they were going to put down the two-year-old female that they had because she'd had two stillborn litters. Isabel immediately caved and expressed an interest in taking the dog. Professor Xavier was apprised of the situation, and he, too, thought that the Institute would be a good home for the dog and that some of the more troubled students could benefit from its presence as well.

Caitlin and her fiancé brought the dog out to New York and stayed over for the Christmas holidays, and the Pomeranian was the sweetest little dog, only about seven pounds or so, a tawny little puffball. Perhaps the most annoying—and amusing—thing about the dog was the wheezing and snorting and moaning; the dog had some sort of harmless deformity of the windpipe, which Isabel found to be endearing. As the students who had remained behind fussed over the dog, Logan entered the room. "What the heck is _that_?" he demanded.

"It's a dog," Isabel said. "And she's mine."

"You're not serious," he said incredulously.

"I am. She's a rescue, Logan, and they were going to put her down. I saved her." Isabel smiled. "She's going to need to be fixed, but we'll worry about that after Christmas."

And so that was how Violette found her way into the Institute.

----------

Before the new semester started, a new teacher arrived at the Institute, a Nordically beautiful woman in her midtwenties with hair the color of spun gold. She reminded Isabel of the femme fatales in Hitchcock movies, particularly of Grace Kelly because of the way she carried herself.

Her name was Emma Frost, and she had been hired in from a like-minded institution that had been recently shut down. She was to take over some of the science and math classes for Hank and the Professor, particularly so that Hank could concentrate on his duties as the school's resident physician.

"Isabel Sayre, is it?" Her voice, like her blue-gray eyes, carried a cool, piercing tone, yet was as clear and musical as a bell and bore a hint of a Kennedy-esque Massachusetts accent. "You're not related to Calvin Sayre, by any chance, are you?"

When Emma mentioned Isabel's father, Isabel felt her temper flare. Yet she remained as outwardly calm as she could, and replied, "Yes, he's my father, but my parents were divorced many years ago and I haven't seen him since I was a little girl. You know how it is sometimes, with divorces…"

"Of course," Emma acknowledged, raising a perfectly waxed, defined eyebrow.

But the unsettling thing about Emma was that Isabel couldn't read her. Emma was able to conceal her aura from Isabel's prying eyes.

And that did not sit well with Isabel. Not at all.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I do not own the "X-Men," but Isabel Sayre/Sylphide and all other original characters are mine.**

**Author's Note: I'm sorry it took so long to update! I have been super busy and stressed, and have just upped my workout schedule from 5 to 6 days weekly because it helps me deal. Getting out tension and getting healthy totally rock!**

**This chapter was written to songs by Glass Pear. You can find them on You Tube with lyrics in the more info spots and everything. They are beautiful, haunting songs along the lines of the Fray, Radiohead, and Coldplay. The five that really inspired me were "Colours," "Fall to Earth," "Wild Place," "The Last Day of Your Life," and "My Ghost."**

**Time Won't Let Me Go**

**Part Three**

Isabel was surprised to find Logan had decent clothes when he went to Christmas Eve Mass with her, Caitlin, Caitlin's fiancé Jerry, Kurt, Bobby, Marie, Artie, Theresa, and little Hisako and some of the younger children. Not everyone was Catholic—only Theresa, Kurt, Isabel, Caitlin, and Jerry—but it was the whole point of actually going to a celebration of something as special as Christmas like a family would, of getting dressed up and polished and watching as all of the Advent candles were lit, and arriving early so that the younger children could take pictures in front of the Nativity scene and the tall tree in the nave adorned with silvery twinkle lights and red and green and gold and silver ornaments.

"You clean up nicely," she remarked as he handed her back her digital camera after he took a picture of her and Caitlin.

"I do," he smirked, and she tilted her head and rewarded him with one of her crooked smiles.

"Ms. Sayre!" Hisako grabbed at Isabel's hand. "Take a picture with Mr. Logan and me! Come _on_!" the little girl urged, grabbing at Logan's hand and pulling him toward the tree.

"Hey! Wait a second!" Artie called out, hurrying to their sides. "_I_ want in the picture, too!"

Isabel laughed as the pulled him to the tree, as he squatted down so he was at their level, putting an arm on either one's shoulders, smiling for the camera. It was a sweet picture, and Isabel felt her breath catch as a shimmer of _something_ that brightened fleetingly and then faded in the back of her mind. Yes, they had kissed a few times last week, but the madness of finals and the end of the semester had caught hold of them, and they had not been able to spend much time together other than sitting together at meals or during their scheduled Danger Room workouts.

"You gonna take the picture, Bells?" Logan questioned suddenly. "We can't sit her smiling all night for you, Jingle Bells!"

Caitlin and Rogue began to laugh, and Caitlin said, "Do you need me to do it, Iz?"

"No, no—I can manage," Isabel muttered, and she quickly took the picture, two of them, and then when he approached her side she hid her face by looking down to see how the pictures came out.

"They look good," he told her sincerely, squeezing her shoulder and then stepping away to urge Kurt to get a picture, too, with Rahne and Theresa. Rogue and Bobby next, and then Caitlin and Jerry, and then some of the younger children—Paige Guthrie and Sam with Danielle Moonstar and Simon Lee, different instructors with different students, until Rogue snatched the camera from Isabel and, her dark eyes glowing mischievously, waved Isabel over to the tree.

"C'mon, Logan, you and Bells. Y'all can't get out of a picture together!" Rogue admonished them.

Isabel, her cheeks reddening, wandered over to the tree to find herself standing beside Logan, and Rogue rolled her eyes. "Pretend y'all like each other," she ordered, which sent some of the students tittering.

"Like this?" He circled his arm around Isabel's shoulders and drew her closer to him, and carefully Isabel put hers on his waist, keeping it closer to the small of his back, and she smiled as Rogue took two or three pictures. When they went to take a look at how they turned out on the camera, Caitlin elbowed Isabel and turned to Logan.

"You two look like you're an actual couple," Caitlin jibed, and Isabel could have killed her.

Christmas Eve dinner was an overwhelming event; the Professor did also try to include some of the other holidays that occurred at the same time, like Hanukkah and the solstice festival Storm had celebrated back in her childhood, and all was madness and wonder at the same time. Jerry proved to be extremely friendly with the children and started games of cards with them, euchre and even Go Fish and Crazy Eights with the younger ones, and he even drew Scott into a few games.

"I can't believe you said that, Caitlin!" Isabel hissed as they stood in the kitchen rinsing off dishes and loading them into the dishwasher. "I can't believe you and Rogue!"

Caitlin exhaled and rolled her eyes. "Oh, like we can't see it? From the moment we walked in the door, we saw how you two looked at each other and how you interacted with each other, and then now it's like you're trying to keep it some big secret! Marie told me everything…"

"Told you what?" Jubilee asked as she entered with another stack of plates.

"Told Miss Sprague absolutely _nothing_!" Isabel snapped out, taking an overly large sip of her Pinot Noir.

"Sure," Jubilee drawled. "I'm not dumb, y'know. Don't think I can't see it, Ms. Sayre!"

"See?" Caitlin said, gesturing to Jubilee. "Even _she _can't…"

"I notice everything!" Jubilee huffed, putting the plates on the granite countertop and then putting her hands on her hips for emphasis.

"Good-_bye_, Jubilee!" Isabel said crossly in a warning tone. Jubilee stomped out of the kitchen to continue helping to clear the table.

"Anyhow," Caitlin resumed, "I'll say he _is_ hot—hotter than Kyle or any other guy you've dated, except for Warren—and he has this whole bad-boy thing going on with him. And then when you talk to him, you figure out he's just broody, not a bad boy."

"Warren and I never really dated," Isabel pointed out.

"Oh, Goddess!" Storm exclaimed, entering the kitchen with the serving utensils in her hand. "Jubilee says that you told her to leave the kitchen, Isabel, and then Kitty would not come in because she heard you…It is not a fight, is it?"

"No, Ororo," Caitlin replied. "More of a lively discussion into the remarkably dismal love life of Isabel Sayre."

"It's not dismal," Isabel countered.

"It's been almost two years since the divorce, Bells," Caitlin riposted. "You need to start playing the field…and don't say that it sucks economically and socially."

Isabel felt her temper beginning to boil, and she turned her attention to scraping the plates clean and putting them into the dishwasher. She pressed her lips together to keep herself from saying something particularly nasty, and then she gave Caitlin the look of death.

"Isabel's life does not seem so dismal," Ororo countered, sitting down and reaching for a wineglass to pour herself what was left of the Pinot Noir. "You do know she has become quite close with Logan, Caitlin?"

"Oh, it's _so_ obvious," Caitlin replied, putting the last of the plates and glasses in the dishwasher as Isabel began to rinse the serving spoons. "The way those two look at each other…Oh, are you _listening_, Isabel?"

Ororo bit back a laugh as Isabel turned to face both of them, a blush in her cheeks. "Okay, you two can stop now," Isabel chided.

"Oh, we'll stop…for now," Caitlin laughed. There were times like this when Caitlin drove her crazy, but really, it was just good-natured teasing.

So when Logan was dragged into the adult rec room to watch _National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation_ with the older teenagers while the younger children contented themselves with _Miracle on Thirty-Fourth Street _and _Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer_, Kitty and Jubilee had made sure to leave a spot beside Logan on the loveseat for Isabel. Jerry and Caitlin, on one of the sectionals with some of the older students who had remained, exchanged knowing glances and Isabel stuck her tongue out at them as she took her assigned seat. Violette had curled in Logan's lap and licked at Isabel's hand when she reached to pet the dog, and Logan put his arm around Isabel proprietarily.

So now he was broadcasting it. And she didn't care. Because he was Logan; he was wanting to tell the world _Hey, I like this girl and even her stupid little dog, even if I'm supposed to hate little dogs, and I don't give a shit what anyone says._

And his aura shone light pink and clear red, and in the middle of the movie he whispered in her ear, "I told you I'd clean up for you."

She turned to face him. "You looked very handsome."

"Thanks." He nuzzled her cheek. "You looked pretty tonight, too. I'm gonna have dreams of your ass in that skirt you wore to church."

Isabel snorted out a giggle, then calmed down when Piotr threw her a curious look.

Things were progressing between her and Logan quite naturally, and she wasn't going to stop it from happening. She liked this, she liked him, and somehow she knew that he wanted the same thing, too.

Before they went to bed he gave her the present he had bought for her, a specially bound version of _The Tales of Marie de France_ with watercolor and ink illustrations, no doubt a rebound book from a vintage seller. It was very sweet, very thoughtful, and she felt silly and shallow when she presented him with a dark blue turtleneck sweater.

"No. I like it," he insisted, unbuttoning his flannel shirt, peeling it off to reveal the white t-shirt underneath, and pulling the sweater over his head. "And it's cotton. Smart choice, Jingle Bells."

"Why do you call me that?" she laughed, and he brushed a stray lock of hair from her face.

"You want me to say your real name?" he asked her, his hand lingering on her cheek to cup it. "Got a nickname for everyone…Ororo is 'Ro, Hank is Blue, Kitty is Half-Pint, and Bobby is the Popsicle. And you're Bells."

"Please, Logan," she said, very softly.

"Merry Christmas, Isabel," he said, more seriously, and he kissed her in the middle of the hallway and she didn't care who saw.

-------------

"Get a look at this!" Kitty chuckled to Jubilee and Rogue as they were on their way downstairs a few days later. Rogue peered out the window over Kitty's shoulder; there stood Logan, a cigar clenched between his teeth, walking Violette on the recently shoveled path. The dog wore a little puffy vest, hot pink to match her leash, a present that the girls had gotten for the dog at the last minute. And on the back the words "Chill out!" were scrawled in purple cursive letters.

"The things men do for love," Jubilee sighed mockingly. And Rogue and Kitty could not help but laugh, because the picture before them _was_ quite funny.

------------

"I was thinking Mont.-St.-Michel and Carnac. St. Malo itself, of course. Brocéliande and Dinan, and I need two more places." She glanced at him. "I was thinking the château in Fougères, Taden, Becharel, and Rennes."

"That's four more places."

"Well, some of these places are very close to one another, and there are specific places I want to take the kids to, so…"

"And just _how_ are we getting around?" he asked her, and she playfully nudged him with her sock-covered foot.

"En train, mon cher Logan," she answered, putting aside her laptop and sitting up so that she could kiss him. "And are there any places _you_ want to go?"

He was surprised that she would give him a choice in the matter. He thought for a moment. What would be a good place to see? What did he _want _to see?

"Omaha Beach," he told her at length.

"Good choice. Just a hundred miles from Saint-Malo. They have the cemetery there and everything. It would be a good learning experience for them." She reached for her laptop once more, pulling up a map of the area and showing him the distance.

"So you have an apartment in Paris?" he asked her casually, reaching under her sweater to touch the soft skin of her belly. She jumped at the sudden contact, but then relaxed as he rested his hand there, and she leaned back against him, the ends of her ponytailed hair caressing the side of his neck.

"I do."

"How'd you come by that?" he asked her, letting his fingers reach higher up her stomach. Her breathing quickened, and she leaned further into him.

"It was my mother's. It was left to me. The condo in Chicago I have a mortgage on." She turned her face to him. "What are you doing for New Year's Eve?"

"Staying here, watching the kids," he answered, in between planting kisses on her neck. "Why? You need a date?"

"It sounds like you need one," she remarked, her lips catching his as his hand wandered further up to caress her, then down again. He saw her glance at the door in a slight panic.

"No one's coming but you," he murmured into her ear. "If I hear anyone else, I'll stop." He unbuttoned the front of her jeans and reached further down until he heard her gasp and then whimper, and a few moments later when she yelped, arching against his hand, he felt very proud of himself.

-----------

"Happy New Year!" Jubilee cried out, opening the door wall and shooting fireworks outside to the delight of the younger students as "Auld Lang Syne" blared from Dick Clark's televised celebration in Times Square. In spite of himself, Logan pulled Isabel to him and kissed her, deeply, as though he were marking her as his as her arms twined around him. And he heard the muffled "Oooh!" coming from the students, like it was a laugh track or he was performing with Isabel in front of some live studio audience. He gave them one of his warning looks, and the younger students calmed down, yet still stifled giggles behind their hands.

So Mr. Logan kissed Ms. Sayre. Well, Mr. Logan was _hot_, and Ms. Sayre was _pretty._ And sometimes those things happened on New Year's Eve.

What Logan didn't expect was for Isabel to grab his hand on their way upstairs for the night. And the unspoken question in her eyes that he himself had never dared to ask…yet.

"You want to?" he asked her.

"Yes."

"Whose room?"

"I…" He thought for a moment. _Get a hold of yourself, she _wants _you._ "Yours? Easier for me to sneak out in the morning."

She bit her lip, pouting a bit. "Don't be silly. Get a change of clothes. I want you to stay with me."

_I want you to stay with me._

"Do you know what you're getting yourself into?" he asked her as he pressed her to him, running his hands through the softness of her hair.

"Yes, I know," she said before she kissed him. God, that woman could kiss, could set him on fire…

"You know the risks with me? I've got one name, a past I don't know about, no place but this…"

"I don't care."

And that was the best _I don't care_ he had ever heard.

-------------

"You okay?"

"I'm fine." She arched as he moved within her again, and he pressed his forehead against hers, the tip of his nose against hers, and as his lips caught hers in a light kiss she sighed out his name.

He used the worst words the second time around and she playfully covered his mouth and called him a potty mouth. But she had to admit she liked it; she liked hearing that filthy language and she liked the animal side of him as he took her and sated something deep within herself, something dark and arcane and ancient.

"Oh, shut the door!" she shrieked as he went outside, naked, to smoke a cigar on her balcony. "It's fucking freezing!" She pulled on her cotton pajama bottoms and matching long-sleeved t-shirt and a hoodie over that, zipping it.

He laughed. "You didn't drop the last 'g' in that. You never do. It's hilarious."

She grumbled and pulled the other blanket at the end of the bed over her comforter and burrowed under the covers. "Hurry up and come to bed!"

A few minutes later, having washed his hands and brushed his teeth and donned his sweatpants, he climbed into bed beside her and nuzzled the side of her neck. "I hope you have turtlenecks, darlin'. I bit you pretty hard."

She tugged off the hoodie and threw it on the floor, then snuggled closer to him. "I never thought you were a biter. I mean…the possibility occurred to me, but I never thought you'd do it. So what does it mean?"

"It means you're mine…like we're monogamous."

She buried her face into his bare shoulder. "You've been itching to use that word with me, haven't you?" she asked him.

"Maybe." He smirked. "Next time, my room. I wanna see you wearing one of my t-shirts to bed."

She drew back from him slightly, tracing the line of his jaw. "Maybe."

"What do you mean 'maybe'?" he asked her, and she kissed his forehead with a secretive smile.

"Maybe."

"So what's it depend on?"

"Whether or not Violette can sleep in there, too," she replied, indicating the little dog fast asleep in its bed in the corner of her room.

"Christ, Bells!" he exclaimed, covering his eyes with a thickly muscled arm. She chuckled and traced the lines of muscle along his perfect belly. She had to admit she couldn't get enough of looking at him in the moonlight when he had gone outside to smoke on her balcony. She wasn't sure if his healing factor had something to do with it, but he was solidly built where Kyle had only been toned, carried those six-pack abs when Kyle had had a slight beer belly from too much beer during his fraternity days. And Logan had made sure she had come more times than she could count during their first two couplings—or actual matings?—alone, whereas with Kyle it had been hit or miss. It had been so amazing, arching against Logan, screeching out his name against his hand as he covered her mouth because they didn't want anyone to be able to hear her through the door. And hearing him growl when she kissed him or touched him in certain places had made her a little skittish, but it made him all the more tantalizing to her.

"You glow in the dark," he mumbled as he pulled her close to him. "Look." He took her wrist into his hand gently and held it out in front of them so that she could see. Yes, she did glow in the dark. A slight silver light emanated from her skin, skin at whose resiliency Logan had marveled at earlier when his grip might have left bruises on others.

"Do you mind it?" she asked him.

"No. It's kinda…comforting. You sure you want me to stay?" he asked her again, a little sheepishly.

"Positive." She let her forefinger graze his stubbly cheek.

Logan's aura shifted to a soft blue and a light pink. He was calm. Isabel brushed a lock of dark hair from his forehead. Calm at night. That was a start on a long road ahead of them.

----------

She sat in once on one of his defense classes grading tests from one of her beginner French classes. She couldn't help but watch him and be transfixed at how he was gruffly patient with the students, at how they idolized him. He might be intimidating at first, but once they got used to him, they found that they learned a lot and that he was a good teacher. The students who had formed a particular bond with him—Kitty, Bobby, Marie, Jubilee, and Piotr—seemed to notice the change in him when he was around Isabel. He was quieter, his mood was lighter, he wasn't so defensive. And Logan helped to keep her from being too shallow, from saying the wrong thing when she really didn't mean it.

She did not, however, think much of the seemingly growing closeness between Emma Frost and Scott. Emma was a good teacher, a fair grader, though hard on her students. She seemed to believe that if children were expected to succeed, they would, and she did spend many hours helping them if they did not understand a concept. But if a student slacked, then she wouldn't put up with it. But it was how Emma dressed that irked Isabel, and even Ororo. Her clothes were beautiful, designer, even her pajamas. She had no problem flaunting her curves and the fluid elegance of her body, but she kept it closer to the conservative side. The way some of the boys drooled after Emma made Isabel wonder if _she_ had ever been the object of adolescent sexual fantasies.

"Oh, which of us is not?" Storm asked her jovially over chamomile tea one night. "You should see how some of the girls look at Logan, Bells. You would be happy that he ignores it."

"Mmm," was all Isabel could say. Logan had told her he loved her as the month of February had come to an end and her birthday had passed. It was one of the most wonderful birthdays she'd had, just with him, going to some casual little bistro to have time alone together. He'd said it as they had sat in his jeep after on the edge of the grounds after dinner, and he'd bought her a new mirror for her room, one that she'd been thinking about buying for awhile, and hung it up for her. It might not be traditionally romantic, but for Logan, it was actions that mostly spoke of love and not a barrage of empty, flowery words. Isabel had had enough of empty words and false promises in her lifetime, and she adored Logan's thoughtfulness.

By the beginning of March their plans were set for France. Marie, Jubilee, Bobby, Kitty, Sam, and Rahne were going. Dr. McTaggart thought that Rahne would benefit from the older girls' company and could come out of her shell a little more, and the welcoming, protective surroundings of the Brignonen estate no doubt offered a safe environment for her. Isabel made sure passports were ready, permission slips, if applicable, were signed, and that each student had whatever medications they might need and made a list of any allergies they might have, like Kitty's issue with shellfish. She left Violette in Theresa's and Amara's capable hands and gave them forty dollars cash—each—for helping out.

"You're not nervous about meeting my family, are you?" she asked Logan the night before they left as she lay in his bed beside him, tracing languid circles in his chest hair. This room had changed quite a bit even in the last few months. He did have some pictures in frames, a few of him and her, including the one from Christmas, and some with the students, particularly one with what could be termed the senior class. He had accumulated some things—books, movies, a television, and a DVD player. A lone bottle of cologne sat on the dresser, Davidoff Cool Water. For Isabel, it had been between that and Clinique Happy for Men, and somehow Logan just didn't seem the type to wear a cologne by the name of Happy.

"A little," he admitted. "But shouldn't every guy be nervous?"

"Point taken," Isabel said, kissing his temple.

"Your grandma can help me, Bells?" he ventured quietly.

"I hope."

"How's it work with her?" he asked her, and she took his hand into hers, running her fingers along the back of it.

"She can get visions from objects—that's one of her gifts. She says metal is the best because it keeps and conducts the energy memories leave behind the longest."

"Metal," he mumbled. The points of the claws emerged a bit, and she placed her hand over them. They were so warm…

"If she can't help you, Logan, then we'll have to go back to France and go into Brocéliande where her intuitive powers are amplified. We'd have to wait until summer, but we could stay in Paris…"

His aura turned muddy gray and then red and pink. "I don't wanna think about that right now. I wanna think about _you_ on top of me." He seized her with a snarl, and she bent to kiss him, making sure to tug on his hair and bring his head back so that she could see down into his lust-darkened hazel eyes and know that she was the reason for it.

------------

The flight wasn't so bad because Summers wasn't piloting the _Blackbird_, but Professor Xavier was able to reach in and calm Logan. The private jet, though, drove him crazy. It was small, and he felt like he was a sardine squeezed into a can with Isabel and the rest of the yammering students.

Once they landed, though, it was better. They took a bus to the Brignonen estate, and Logan had to admit that he was pretty impressed with it. The Brignonens had owned the land since the days when Brittany had been its own independent duchy, and they had managed to keep it throughout all of these centuries. Isabel explained proudly that the French kings would sometimes consult Brignonen intuitives—the gift was passed through the female line—and that Eleanor of Aquitaine had had a Brignonen intuitive as her lady-in-waiting during her time as dowager queen of England. Even though there was no longer any title for the family, they remained on the ancestral property and maintained it, and it somehow seemed to stay in relatively good shape. Logan attributed that to whatever the hell they brought back from Faerie with them.

Véronique was lovely for a woman of seventy-six; with her brown hair and expressive eyes she reminded Logan of Leslie Caron. She was very welcoming of the students, and Isabel's cousin Sylvie had decided to stay while they were there. It was chaos in the kitchen and dining room as Isabel's aunt Aurélie, Isabel, and Véronique lapsed from French into English and then back again, and he found himself feeling almost _at home_ when Véronique asked him to get this or that out of the cupboard and to give this to Sylvie to put on the table. He could smell some cake and the poulet au cidre cooking and realized how hungry he was, and he was pleased when Véronique asked him if he wanted some Heineken.

"Where are you from, Logan?" Aurélie asked as she brushed some egg glaze on the cake, then put it back in the oven. A kouign amann, Isabel had told him it was called.

"Canada," he answered, and Aurélie glanced at Véronique and tilted her head just slightly. Véronique furrowed her brow and pursed her lips. What the fuck was this?

"Isabel mentioned that," Sylvie chirped as she took the basket of bread off of the counter and went into the dining room. "Eh, Belle-Belle, les étudiants peut boire du vin, non?" she called.

Isabel hesitated, then shrugged. "Oui, Sylvie, mais juste un petit peut. On ne peut pas boire jusqu'à vingt et un ans aux Etats-Unis."

"Et Logan? Il veut du vin?"

"Do you want wine, Logan? It's nothing special, just a vin de table—a white," Isabel said.

He hesitated, but then he saw her warning look. "Just a glass," he answered.

After dinner, he went outside to smoke and found himself wandering the grounds. There were some monoliths somewhere on the property, and he could see the stone remnants of them through the trees and shrubbery and then the woods, which were now a nature preserve—beyond them. He listened to the nightingales, somehow sensing that he'd heard them before in this country, because there were plenty in Japan and he remembered those.

He wandered back inside the house and went into the old parlor, which had been restored to its eighteenth-century splendor. He found himself really taking the time and admiring the furniture and the artwork, until he came to the small oil painting on the far wall, hanging in between the window and the corner.

It depicted a group of knights in arms in a forest standing around a king and a queen as though they were protecting them. The two ladies-in-waiting were clutching at each other and the queen's face was distant and melancholy whereas the king's was full of decisive authority. He was banishing an auburn-haired woman clad in red from what appeared to be his kingdom; he was pointing imperiously to some unseen border. The woman in red's face was sullen, full of anger, as though she were beginning to plot her revenge. But she could do nothing now, because the royal guard had crossbows pointed at her. Strange, he thought. The woman looked familiar. Almost like…Here he felt a stab of guilt.

He glanced down at the plated placard below it, and he suddenly felt cold when he saw the name of the painting and the artist.

_The Banishment of the Phoenix from Sanctuary in Brocéliande after Word Came from the Rhymer._


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I do not own "X-Men," but Isabel Sayre and all other original characters are mine. Thanks to everyone who has been actively reading and reviewing!**

**Time Won't Let Me Go**

**Part Four**

Things were not right with Rogue and Bobby. Isabel could tell as much. They weren't touching each other at all, not exchanging quick pecks on the cheek as they always did before. Rogue's eyes seemed more melancholy as they went on the guided tour of the cathedral in Rennes, as they spent the day in Mont-St.-Michel. Isabel whispered to Sylvie to see what the matter was with Rogue. She hated recruiting her cousin into little games like this, but if there truly was a deeper issue, Isabel felt that she should know.

"Tout est bon, Marie?" Sylvie asked her as the three of them sat outside watching Logan and the other students playing boules at the back of the house.

Marie glanced back at them both with a scowl on her face and an alarmed light in her eyes, but she answered quickly, "Tout est bon. C'est rien. _Nothin_', Ms. Sayre. It's nothin'."

The last two sentences were punctuated with a pointed look at Isabel, and then Marie got up and hurried into the house, wrapping her coat more tightly around her. Isabel made a mental note to talk to Logan about it; he was much closer to Marie than any of them, even Bobby. Or else…

Jubilee.

Rogue took her dinner into the kitchen and ate in there; Véronique flashed an inquistive glance at Isabel, who shook her head gravely. Rogue's aura was hard to read; she had learned from Emma Frost and Professor Xavier how to block telepaths, even intuitives, quite effectively. There was no aura shining about her, nothing that Isabel could see. Just Marie's departing figure.

She decided the better course of action would be to go to Logan about it, because he was better able to reach Marie in her darker moods. She took her opportunity when he went outside to go smoke, and she mentioned it casually to him.

"They're growin' apart," he said with an unconcerned shrug. "There's nothing wrong with that, is there?"

"No. But Logan…I can't see her aura. I can't tell how she's feeling, what might be growing through her head. I feel so bad for her." Isabel reached for his hand and watched as his brow furrowed, the brows drawing together into his normal frown when he saw something he didn't like. He sniffed at the air, then dropped his cigar and stomped it out.

"What is it?" Isabel whispered as she saw his colors change, to an orange. He ler go of her hand as she heard the _snikt_ as he unsheathed his claws. She turned around to get a look at what had seized his attention.

It was in the woods, toward the ruin of the monoliths she had played in as a child, and she could hear the quiet whisper of _Beware_ in the back of her mind. She could see the yellow-white lights that shone, twinkled like little stars or lightening bugs in the dark, and that disappeared just as quickly. And then the byellow-white darkened to a red, and changed to an orange-white, and then…

"What the fuck?" Logan growled, stepping off of the patio into the grass and ready to make his way into the woods.

"Logan!" Isabel ran after him, catching him on the shoulder. "Don't go out there! Don't…"

He turned to her, his eyes darkened with some sort of feral fear of something that he didn't understand, a fear of not being able to fight the thing he couldn't see. "What the fuck's going on here, Isabel?"

"I don't know. Sometimes, when the moon waxes, strange things happen." She didn't know why, but she was trembling. "These are old woods, Logan. It's a monolith. What else can anyone expect?"

He gritted his teeth and glanced back at the woods, then turned to gaze down at her once more. "So Brittany's the land of crazy shit in the woods?"

He let her lead him back into the house. He was calmer once they entered, once Sam pulled him into a game of euchre with Bobby and Rahne.

Isabel joined Véronique in the living room, where Kitty and Jubilee were doing some of the homework Professor Frost had assigned, and Véronique put down her magazine and peered up at Isabel with a concern lining her face.

"What is it?" Véronique asked quietly in French, and Isabel sat down on the couch beside her and glanced at Kitty and Jubilee, then replied very quietly.

"There were lights by the monolith ruin, Mémé—like little lightening bugs that kept changing color…the colors of fire. And they'd disappear and reappear…Logan almost went after them…"

"Dieu," Véronique muttered. "And what did he ask you?"

"Just what they were—and I was honest, because I didn't know, Mémé. I know that sometimes things tend to manifest as the full moon draws closer, and even the new moon sometimes, but…"

Véronique paled. "I don't know what it could be, but I'm sure it's nothing to worry about…so long as you keep out of the woods after dark until the full moon passes…"

Isabel felt reassured. But she didn't know just how she would explain it to Logan.

---------

"You've got to be kidding me," Logan said incredulously. "What is this—some little kids' fairy tale?"

Isabel wasn't amused. "Please, Logan, just do as Mémé asks. And we'll need to tell the kids." She watched as he pulled off his shirt and as he dropped to his hands and knees on the bed, inching his way toward her. But she seemed to be preoccupied, and she smelled tense, so he decided to let up a little bit. _Shot down._

"What else is going on?" he asked her, reaching to knead her shoulders. She relaxed a little bit and leaned into him.

"It's Rogue, Logan. She and Bobby…well, what we were talking about earlier. I can't see her aura, Logan, and I want to talk to her, but she blows me off every time. Maybe you…"

"Yeah, I'll talk to her." Rogue had smelled off, too, but he hadn't thought much of it; she was having trouble deciding in between going to NYU in the city or staying behind and starting out at the community college. And things had been shaky between her and Bobby, and Logan knew it was all about raging hormones and the things they wanted to do but couldn't. Storm had given her the cursory talk, and Isabel had given her the don't-be-stupid-and-sleep-around talk, the it's-okay-to-be-picky-because-for-women-sex-is-more-invasive talk. Somehow Logan thought the word "invasive" was a little much.

"So am I invasive?" he asked her suddenly.

"Invasive?" she echoed, looking at him askance.

"You know. Invasive."

She snorted out a laugh. "God, no, not _you_. You're persistent, but not _invasive_…"

And he showed her just how persistent he could be.

-----------

_He felt a hand gently shake him awake. He checked the digital alarm clock on Isabel's side of the bed and it was three forty-five in the morning. "Christ, darlin', can't you get enough?" he groaned, and he looked down to see that she was fast asleep._

_ He smelled it again, the scent he had picked up in the yard after dinner, the smell of ash and smoke and fire and ruin and…_

Jeannie…

_"Jeannie," he intoned, turning to see her there, standing before him, his desire for Isabel waning. She was there, clad in red like on the day he'd first met her, close enough to reach out and touch her. She shined with an inner light, a strange glow so unlike Isabel's. _

_ "So you've forgotten me so soon?" Jean demanded coldly. "I wouldn't be if surprised Scott would, but you…"_

_ "It's not like that, Jeannie," he protested calmly. _

_ "Not like what? You and Isabel? She's got no problem attracting men, it's just keeping them…keeping _you…_"_

_ He was still shocked to see her, shocked at the way her lip curled malevolently and how her eyes, a strange, dark color now, gazed down at him with such animosity._

_ "You're dead," he asserted. "You're dead and I've got a right to move on with my life. I've got a right to live my life, and for once I'm living it. I'm not chasing ghosts. So go on."_

_ Her eyes turned that beautiful glass green once more, and they misted as she sat down on the bed beside him. "You don't mean that, do you, Logan? Especially since I know now, since I love you now?" She rested her hand on his chest, and it was so hot, it burned even him. He felt the pain dull as his nerve endings were damaged underneath her hand, and then the pain returned once more as his body fought back and began to knit itself back together, to heal itself._

_ "Jean…" he began._

_ She leaned closer to him, her auburn tresses soft and silky against his chest and shoulder, and she tilted her head, her lips curving into a smile. "Don't you know, Logan, they'll never understand us. Scott and Isabel only scratch the surface. But you and I, we understand each other. We each know what it's like, to have something so dark in us that we have to keep it trapped away inside and that we can't let it out. But with me, you don't have to be afraid. With me you can let it out…"_

_ She bent to kiss him, and he felt the animal rage in the dark place within him, and as his mouth opened to let her tongue in, he let the animal out. He snarled and seized her, pulling her roughly to him, rolling her beneath him, but then she broke the kiss and her eyes flashed, and her hand shot out and grasped his around the neck and she pushed him back down on the bed, scratching at him, biting at him, drawing blood from his lips as her teeth nipped. And then her other hand traced its way down his chest agonizingly slowly and she reached the waistband of his pajama pants. When she touched him, he arched and snarled, and he glanced over to see Isabel's face beside him, Isabel asleep and blissfully unaware…_

"Logan!" Isabel exclaimed, reaching for his shoulder, and he sat bolt upright, his chest heaving as he took in great gulps of air to calm himself.

"Bells…"

"It was just a dream, Logan. I didn't want to wake you up, but…" Her voice trailed off and she wiped the perspiration away from his forehead, and he knew she was studying his aura, trying to figure out what he had dreamed of.

"It's okay. I'm glad you woke me up." He took her hand into his and enveloped her in his arms, filling his senses with the smell of her and the feel of her and the way her breathing and heartbeat sounded. "It was a nightmare."

"About what?" she queried into his shoulder.

"Ghosts." Not a lie. He couldn't tell her about the dream, about a ghostly Jean Grey seducing him while she slept beside him in this bed in her grandmother's house. "I love you, Isabel," he almost blurted.

"Oh, Logan, I love you, too!" she answered, her eyes softening in the dark.

"And there's been no one else, not for a long time…" he mustered.

Isabel shushed him. "I know, and you don't need to say anything about it. Go back to sleep." She yawned and moved closer to him, draping an arm around him. He placed his hand on hers where it rested on his side, and he felt hers go limp as she drifted back to sleep.

As he rolled over to face her he winced at something that felt like a thousand little pinpricks on his skin. He sat up, and in the dark, his keen eyes picked up a fading pink handprint in the exact same spot where Jean's hand had burned him in his dream.

-------------

He asked Véronique about the painting when Isabel had taken the students into town.

"Which painting?" she asked.

He led her into the old parlor and showed her. She nodded and turned her brown eyes to him, and they narrowed as she surveyed him.

"So can you tell me what the story is?"

Véronique sighed, then smiled a bit. "It's an old family legend. You know we're of…diluted blood. We can trace our ancestry to Brocéliande; some of the Half-Bloods intermarried with normal humans. The same thing happened in the fourteenth century with Thomas the Rhymer and Caelia, the Queen of the enclave in the Forest of Arden. In exchange for his love, she gave the Rhymer the power of prophecy. Surely you know the story of how the creature called the Phoenix sought refuge in Brocéliande and tried to take the mind of the one of the little princesses? The Rhymer was able to save his daughter in time, and Caelia banished the Phoenix from Arden. Next, she came to Brocéliande seeking sanctuary, and they gladly let her in, until the Rhymer got wind of it and came himself to tell the King of Brocéliande about what had happened. The King was forced to banish the Phoenix, and she swore revenge on our people, and in turn we swore that we would keep her from ever endangering our kind or any other human child again."

"Another fairy tale," Logan remarked witheringly.

Véronique laughed. "Non. C'est une vraie histoire." They went into the kitchen where she went to make some lunch, and he helped with some of the preparations.

"What was the Phoenix?" he asked.

Véronique shrugged. "No one knows. A demigoddess, perhaps, or an elemental creature cast out of the heavens. An angel fallen from paradise." Her lips tightened as she glanced back at him.

The silence in the room was almost too much as he bit into his sandwich. But now that he was alone he thought to ask Véronique about the other reason why he had come here. There was no time like the present since they were alone, and he leaned forward to ask the question.

"Véronique," he ventured quietly, "could you…?" And he let his claws emerge just a little bit from his wrist, and she nodded in understanding.

"After lunch," she told him.

Véronique kept her word, and after lunch they retreated into the living room, where he sat down on the couch and unsheathed his claws just slightly, and Véronique sat down beside him. Without a word, she touched one of the claws, closing her eyes and sinking back into the cushion.

After a few moments her eyes popped open. She sprang up, and the smell that came from her was of agitation, and she paced the room, wringing her hands, her face pale and covered with a very fine sheen of perspiration. Logan rose from the couch to go to her, but she held out her hand and commanded, "Reste-là!"

Logan stayed glued to his seat on the couch. He could only watch as Véronique's pace slowed, as she murmured to herself in French, and he saw the expression of knowing on her face as things began to crystallize, as she unraveled the things she had seen coming from him and ordered them in her mind.

Then he heard the front door open. Shit. Isabel and the kids were back.

Isabel entered the living room, and her worried gaze traveled from Logan to Véronique and then back to Logan.

"Mémé, qu'est-ce qui se passe?" she demanded.

Véronique came back to reality as she focused her eyes on her granddaughter, and she smiled lucidly. "C'est rien, Belle-Belle. J'aidais Logan, et je dois…" She inhaled. "Je expliquerai plus tard."

"D'accord," Isabel murmured, watching Véronique leave the room and head upstairs. She crossed the room and stopped in front of Logan, her arms folding across her chest as her eyes bored angry holes into him. "I thought we were going to wait and see together, Logan. Whatever comes from you could affect her…" She shook her head.

"Bells, I asked her. She said it was okay. There was no one else here." He stood up, his hackles rising. He didn't want to be accused of something he hadn't done, because Véronique had, after all, consented to reading him.

"Let's just hope she's okay," Isabel snapped out over her shoulder as she turned to leave the room. "Sometimes you just don't think, Logan. And you need to. You need to learn how to…"

He growled softly to himself. Why was she so pissed with him? Didn't they come here to find this shit out? Didn't she _want _to help him get through this and find this out?

"Mémé has a name for you," Isabel mentioned as she came up to their room before dinner.

"Really?" he said incredulously, putting his book down and staring up at her squarely. She sat down beside him and took his hand into hers.

"Do you remember a Rémy Lebeau?" she queried. "Since it was the most recent and the strongest, that jumped out at her most."

He shook his head. She was staring down at his hand and forearm, tracing the veins that corded through it with her forefinger. Why wasn't she looking at him?

He sniffed. He listened. Her heart was beating quickly, pounding, and he could smell a little bit of fear, the fear that came with uncertainty.

"Was there anything else?" he asked her.

She looked up at him, her blue eyes misty. "Logan…" She glanced away, blinking rapidly, biting her lip.

"It's okay, Bells. You can say it," he said to her.

She returned her gaze to him, and she asked the question very carefully, as though she were asking about a character in some fictional story.

"Logan, who's Kayla?"


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: I don't own "X-Men," but Isabel Sayre/Sylphide and all original characters are mine. Sorry it has taken so long to update! Thanks to everyone who has been actively reading and reviewing.**

**Time Won't Let Me Go**

**Part Five**

"Logan, who's Kayla?"

She repeated it, and he could smell the salt of tears brimming in the corners of her eyes and he could hear the trembling of her voice, as though she were trying to keep herself from crying.

"Kayla?" he echoed. "Isabel, where'd you get that name?"

"Mémé got the name, Logan." She wouldn't look at him now. She was focusing on the flowered pattern of the quilt, and he reached out and pulled her close to him. She was trembling. "Do you remember?"

"No." Because he didn't. Because that part of him was gone. He had been given a chance at a life, a chance to set down roots at Xavier's. And the way he was so accepted with Isabel's family gave him hope that maybe the world wasn't so bad. But Isabel…why was she so upset? "You thinking if I found out who this Kayla was, I'd leave you and the kids to go back to her?" he said.

"It isn't that, Logan."

"Then tell me what it is," he pleaded.

She looked up at him. "Because I don't want to be a home wrecker. I mean, if you find out who she is, and you want to go back to her, then I'll step aside. I'll understand."

So Isabel had issues, too. He cupped her cheeks with either hand and wiped away the tears that fell with his thumbs. "It's been over fifteen years, Bells. She's probably moved on if she isn't dead. But I've got you. I've got the school. So the old Wolverine is getting domesticated, and from what I hear, he kind of likes it."

Isabel smiled at him and kissed him. "He is?" she said. "Well, I'm glad, then. I'm glad it was the sylph who tamed him, just like in the Greek myths."

"So about Rogue," he said, trying to change the subject. "You want me to talk to her?"

"She won't talk to me," Isabel said dolefully. He frowned and scrubbed his hand over his face. He wasn't very good with stuff like this. He wished he could leave it to Isabel, or even Jean if Jean were still around, but the task fell to him and he had to take it on. He pulled Isabel close to him and gave her derrière a squeeze.

"Something to think about for later," he growled into her ear. She swatted his hand away and laughed.

"_Later_," she reiterated. She got up from the bed. "Come on, hot ass. Downstairs for dinner, vite!"

Logan laughed and followed Isabel downstairs. Tonight, he thought, after he talked to Rogue, he'd take Isabel from behind, all so he could get a view of that ass.

-----------

Véronique had apparently recovered from whatever side effects she had suffered from reading Logan and was down at dinner, presiding over it as though nothing had happened. Rogue was seated by Kitty, halfheartedly listening to the conversation that Kitty, Jubilee, and Sylvie were having, and Bobby was practicing his French pronunciation with Isabel and Aurélie.

Something was up. He would have to talk to Rogue…and fast.

After dinner, he picked up his half-empty beer bottle and put a cigar in his pocket. "C'mon, kid," he said to Rogue. "Let's go take a walk."

Rogue went for her jacket and Logan went outside and lit a cigar, then waited for Marie as she banged the door shut behind her. They walked to the edge of the wood, where last night Logan had seen the lights around the monoliths. He didn't see them tonight. Strange, he thought.

"So, Marie," he began nonchalantly, "what's going on?"

Rogue smelled off, and her heartbeat began to quicken. "It's nothin', Logan, so quit worryin'."

"Quit worrying?" Logan snorted. "Bullshit, it's nothing. Isabel notices you're off, and you smell off, and something's going on with you and Bobby. Now cut the shit and tell me."

Rogue glared at him, then sighed audibly and pouted. "Ya really wanna know? Ah'm thinkin' about breakin' up with Bobby. It's just…it ain't workin', Logan. I feel like he's with me because he feels sorry for me, and how Ah can't touch and all…"

"He likes you, Rogue," Logan assured her. "And he seems like he's dealing with it okay."

"But _Ah'm_ not dealin' with it okay!" Rogue interrupted. "Ah can't kiss him, Ah can't hold his hand without gloves, Ah can't…" Her eyes filled with tears, and she wrapped her arms around herself as though she were trying to comfort herself.

Logan clenched his cigar in between his teeth and drew Rogue close to him. "C'mon, kid, there's ways if you wanna…" His voice trailed off. He couldn't say it aloud.

"Ah heard you and Isabel last night," Rogue mumbled into his shoulder. "Y'all are really in love, aren't you?"

She'd heard them? _Christ!_ "Yeah, I love her," he admitted, a little sheepishly, a little embarrassed he'd been loud enough for Rogue to hear.

"And that's why Ah wanna let Bobby go. It ain't fair to him," Rogue snuffled.

"I think Bobby's the one who needs to make that decision, darlin'." He listened to her pulse. "Is there something else?"

Rogue stepped away from him, wiping her tears away with the sleeve of her jacket. "Yeah."

"Then tell me what it is," he ordered. She stubbed at the ground with the toe of her shoe, and then she looked up at him again.

"Ah'm not goin' to college," she said succinctly.

"What?" Logan exclaimed. Rogue had always wanted to go to college, she'd had good enough grades and had done well on the SATs. "Where'd that come from?"

Rogue inhaled a deep, trembling breath. "Ah emailed my parents back in Mississippi to get them to sign off on the FAFSA forms for student loans. Right before we left, my dad emailed me back and said that they're not signin' anythin'. Since Ah'm eighteen and Ah've given them more than enough grief, Ah'm on my own."

"Shit, I'm sorry," Logan mustered, and he took a deep pull from his beer bottle. "So what're you gonna do?"

"Ah dunno. Leave after graduation."

"Rogue, that's nuts," he scolded. "Professor Xavier'd want you to stay on. We'll talk to him when we get back. There's gotta be something we can do…" He racked his brains. Rogue could always take out student loans and get a Pell grant. Or else… "I'm gonna talk to Isabel about this," he told her. He knew Isabel had some money that her father had left her, put away in accounts and trust funds and mutual funds, just so Calvin Sayre didn't have to look at his mutant daughter and his more-than-human ex-wife again.

"Don't talk to Isabel," Rogue pleaded, tossing her head so that her long platinum bangs fell over her eyes, and Logan could see where the eye makeup had smudged, leaving lines of black around her eyes. Isabel never wore eyeliner, he thought absently to himself, because she always thought her eyes stood out enough…

"Why shouldn't I talk to Isabel?" Logan demanded, and then he saw them again. The lights by the monolith. Orange, white, yellow, red, changing colors and then back again…

"Logan." Rogue stepped closer to him, grabbing his forearm in fear. "Did ya…did ya see that?"

"Yeah, I saw it," he mumbled. "Bells says there's crazy shit happens there."

The lights swirled, twinkled, danced merrily, all the while changing colors in a pattern. As though whatever it was were trying to say something. As though…

"Fuck," Logan muttered, clenching his beer bottle and stepping back. "That ain't just anything."

"What is it?" Rogue whispered.

"Watch."

Rogue watched, then gasped. "Oh, my God!" she intoned. "It's…The lights are blinkin' in…No way…"

"Morse code," Logan concluded.

----------

Isabel was checking her email when Logan came into the old parlor, slamming the door behind him. "We gotta talk."

She closed her laptop and set it aside, then watched as Logan sat down in the chair across from hers. "About what?" His aura showed a dark red tinged with a muddy gray. "Logan, what's wrong?" she said fearfully.

"Where do I begin?" he said. "With Rogue or the crazy lights in the woods?"

She inhaled deeply. "What about Rogue?"

He slumped in the chair, his brow furrowing. "Rogue's thinking about breaking up with Bobby because she can't touch him, how it's not fair to him, blah blah blah. I told her there's ways around that…"

"Better you than me, I guess?" Isabel said ironically.

"I dunno," Logan said. "If she feels okay coming to me, I don't have a problem answering her questions."

"Like I said," Isabel reiterated, "better you than me." She stretched her arms over her head. "So what else?"

"Her parents basically told her she's on her own since she's eighteen now. They won't sign off on her FAFSA or anything," Logan snorted, a disgusted look on his face. He clenched his fists as though to keep his claws from piercing through. "That kind of shit pisses me off."

Isabel yawned. "That's easy to take care of. Professor Xavier can sign off on it, or I can. She has to live at the school and commute--so what? She needs to get her powers under control, anyway. Maybe another year at the school would do her good."

"You sound cold about it," Logan remarked.

"It's not like I'm being cold," Isabel objected. "If she wants to be…_intimate_ with Bobby or anyone else, she needs to get her powers under control. So far, she's been distracted and hasn't really done that. And I get it, with Jean gone and all, but it comes to a point…"

"Was your mom like that?" Logan asked her. "Did she have that attitude?"

"Yeah, she actually did," Isabel told him honestly.

"No wonder you're so neurotic sometimes," Logan muttered.

Isabel glared at him. Where did he get off saying that? "I'm not neurotic," she insisted.

"Yeah, you are. You wanna be this good little girl, have this perfect life. You got married before Jean did, did this and that before Jean did, then got divorced. Were you in some kind of competition with Jean?" he said curiously.

Isabel scoffed. "That's none of your fucking business!" she shouted. "I was young and stupid and made mistakes--who doesn't? You've fucked up more times than I can count!" He sprang up. "Fucked up? When have I fucked up?"

"You fucked up earlier today. You went ahead and had Mémé read you when you _promised _I could be there! You gave her a migraine, Logan! You reneged on your promise--you fucked up!"

"They're my memories," he growled, his hackles rising, baring his teeth.

"She's _my_ grandmother!"

"Oh, so I didn't know this was Isabel Land, and you were the queen, and what you say goes!" Logan snapped out.

"And I didn't know I was your _property_, to do with as you pleased!"

"You're not my property," Logan snarled back. "You're my mate."

She had been ready to fling another insult at him, when she gasped and let her hand fall across her heart, and weakly she asked him, "What did you just say?"

"I said," he repeated, "you're my mate."

She bit her lip. _Mate._ The word meant so much more than just girlfriend. It meant partner, it meant a deep bond. Swans mated for life.

It meant forever.

Could she give him forever?

She could. She could give him a thousand forevers and until the end of time if he wanted it.

---------

On the way to Omaha Beach, Isabel sat by Rogue on the train. Rogue shifted so that she didn't have to look at Isabel. Dark yellow--the girl was still upset. And she had right to be, Isabel thought. To not be able to go to college because her parents had more or less disowned her…Well, there was a fix to that now. It only depended on whether or not Rogue would take it as a sincere gesture of kindness.

"Rogue."

"Yeah, Ms. Sayre?" Rogue said, turning to face her. Isabel could see the slight shadows under Rogue's eyes, so the girl hadn't been sleeping well, and the anxiety coming from the uncertainty of the situation had lent a certain droop to the corners of the girl's mouth and to the eyes. Well, anything could be better than this, couldn't it?

"Logan told me about some of the things that you told him last night," Isabel told her quietly, "and I emailed Professor Worthington and Professor Munroe."

"You didn't," Rogue said accusingly. "Logan…told you, and so you went and told…"

Isabel sighed audibly, impatiently. "Rogue, you're not the only one it's happened to. Professor Xavier handles things like this all the time. Professor Munroe and I can find some scholarships for you, and we'll help you apply. Professor Worthington will pay for any other tuition costs, and we can cover your books. It's not all that bad. We can make this work."

Rogue's brow crumpled, and she stared at Isabel cynically. "Yer sure?"

"Positive. There's so many universities…and you can stay on at the Institute." Isabel hoped Rogue would say yes.

Rogue leaned back against her seat. "Ah'll think about it," she said.

"Good," Isabel said, though she wasn't sure that Rogue would really think about it at all. Maybe the girl already had her mind made up. Maybe she just didn't think she was college material, and maybe she would leave after graduation, but that was so far from the case. Rogue was brilliant, compassionate, persevering. Professor Xavier had said as much when Isabel had returned to the Institute. The girl shouldn't have to shortchange herself. Isabel would see that she didn't, at least.

The day was cool, and the sea was choppy, but from the safety of the beaches, it was a beautiful sight. She had been here a thousand times, yet every time she returned, she still found it as haunting as the last. There had been so many who had died here, all to try and free others from the grip of a terrible dictator. Their lives weren't in vain.

Were they?

She shuddered. There were times when she would wonder what might happen if Magneto ever succeeded in his errand. If he became a dictator, would he order normal humans to be rounded up and put in camps as he had been, as what could very well happen to mutants? And what about the ones who weren't mutants but who were more than human, like her grandmother or the Fantastic Four or the Spiderman? What would he do to them? They would be killed, no doubt, just so Magneto could have domain over this world without question. And Professor Xavier would no doubt be among them…

She listened to the guide, who explained the details of the invasion. And then she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

"Ms. Sayre!" Piotr cried out, interrupting the guide's monologue. "Ms. Sayre--Mr. Logan…"

Isabel whirled to face the back of the group, where Logan had been standing with Kitty, Piotr, and Jubilee.

He was kneeling on the ground, pressing the palms of his hands to his temples, gritting his teeth as a low growl emanated from his throat.

Isabel ran to his side, bending down beside him. "Logan."

He opened his eyes. There wasn't the normal spark in them. There was nothing, as though he were an unthinking creature.

There was no color in his aura. It was all black.

"Logan," she repeated, her voice trembling. Was he going feral? "Logan, come back. Come back to me."

She placed her hands over his, stared into his eyes. The blankness in his eyes faded, and he stopped growling at length. He went from a kneel to a crouch, propping himself up with his hands on the ground, and he screwed his eyes shut as the tour continued on without them.

"Isabel." His voice was quiet, creaky, as though he were using it for the first time.

"I'm here, Logan." She placed her hand on his shoulder and she leaned closer to him, so that he could smell her scent and feel her heat and be comforted by it. "What happened?"

He furrowed his brow, and then he transitioned into a sitting position.

"I had a flashback," he told her finally. "I've been here before."

It didn't surprise her. But there was something else, she noticed from the expression on his face.

"I've seen Jean, Bells. Like a ghost. And the lights in the monolith…I ain't sure, but it's gotta be her."

Isabel sat back on her heels. "Logan, that's impossible. She's dead."

"Are you sure she's dead?" he persisted, standing up. He held out his hand and tugged her up, too. "There's no body, and the painting in the salon…There's more to it, Bells."

"There might be. But it could just be a ghost, a visitation, like with Azaliz…"

He shifted. "No," he insisted. "It was too real to be a ghost. She's alive, Bells. She's still alive someplace. But maybe she's not ready to come back yet."

"Maybe not," Isabel murmured, and she dismissed the thought from her mind as they went to rejoin the tour.

---------------

"He said that he's seen these lights by the monolith several times, Mémé," Isabel told Véronique. She watched as Véronique went to the window to stare down at him outside with some of the students as they ran around the perimeter of the house, and a frown marred the older woman's face.

"Even during vacations he keeps them working, doesn't he?" Véronique remarked, and Isabel followed her grandmother to the window.

"That's one thing we have to keep doing," Isabel said. "We have to keep on our toes. Because when we don't, bad things happen."

Véronique put her arm around Isabel's shoulders and drew her close. "Do you feel guilt for not being there in time, Belle-Belle?"

"Sometimes." Isabel buried her face into her grandmother's shoulder, and the familiar scent of Chanel No. 5 was a comfort to her. "But then I know that there was no way for any of us to know of what would happen, and I'm relieved that I was there at the end."

"C'est bon, Belle-Belle." Véronique watched as Isabel disengaged herself from the embrace, and she turned to address her granddaughter. "He has seen her in his dreams, he says? And the lights?"

"Yes."

"Your professor always said that she was a powerful telepath," Véronique observed. "And even when I was around her, I could never tell how great her power was. Perhaps some of her essence still remains."

"Why would she be drawn _here_?" Isabel wondered.

Véronique shrugged. "Maybe because of the energies of this land, and because people to whom she attached during her lifetime are here. Maybe she hasn't crossed yet…"

"Logan doesn't think she's dead, Mémé."

"Do _you_ think she's dead?"

"I haven't gotten any feelings that she isn't."

"Then she must be dead," Véronique said with an air of finality. "How else could her essence manifest itself?"

"Mémé," Isabel persisted. "The picture in the parlor--Logan has seen it. And I did, too. The woman who they're banishing--the Phoenix--looks a lot like Jean. Do you think, that maybe--"

"Non!" Véronique interrupted, her eyes blazing and a glare forming on her face. "The Phoenix Force is gone--the Fae out of the Forest of Arden made sure of that! C'est pas possible, Isabel! Don't mention it again!"

Isabel remained in the sitting room as her grandmother turned and left her quickly. Why did it upset Véronique so? What had happened? What had Isabel said?

That night, though, the moon was full, and as she returned from the bathroom to get back into bed beside Logan, she saw her grandmother, glowing slightly silver under the moonlight, making her way back from the monolith.

So Véronique had gone out there to bring on a full-moon vision. Had that postulation really upset her that much?

Isabel sat down on the bed, quietly so as not to disturb Logan, who was sleeping deeply and peacefully for once. He shifted in his sleep and reached for her, and she lie down and moved closer to him and went to sleep herself.

She awakened to his screaming, and she turned on the light when he sat bolt upright, his chest heaving. He blinked a few times to accustom himself to his surroundings, and he turned to face her.

"It's coming back," he said to her. "Bits and pieces…"

"What's coming back?" she prompted.

He ran a hand through his hair, and then he lie back down beside her, scrubbing his hand across his forehead. "Omaha Beach. The Normandy invasion. D-Day. Bells, I was there. I was there in the landing party. God, so many guys died…so many. There was blood in the waves…it was red…"

She shuddered. So the scene at the beginning of _Saving Private Ryan_ had been accurate, then, more or less. She took his hand into hers. "So do you think the memories will just start pouring out now?"

He shook his head. "I dunno. I was gonna ask you that. You think that Chuck…"

"I think he would be the best person to ask," Isabel said.

"I was thinking that," he said. "As soon as we get back, we'll try to look for more things. Are you in?"

"Logan," she assured him, "you know I'm in this with you, no matter what."

"Good," he grinned. "I'm glad you'll be there. No matter what."

And as he kissed her and pulled her closer to him, she felt the shimmer of a warning in the back of her mind and felt a sense of dread--a deep sense of dread--within her heart that made her want to start crying. She knew what it was.

_Jean_._ I can't see you, I can't hear you, but I know you're here. I can feel you._

A giggle echoing in her mind. _You do? _

Isabel almost gasped in fear. It couldn't be…it couldn't…_Go away. You're dead. _Go away!

_No,_ the voice in her mind whispered.

_Cross over. Go. If you don't, I swear to God I'll find a way to make you cross over…_

And she heard another bubble of laugh. And then, very sharply, almost cruelly, _NO! I'll go when I'm ready to, and it will end when I see fit for it to._

This…

This was _not_ the Jean Grey she remembered.

This was an entirely different entity altogether.


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: I don't own "X-Men," but Isabel Sayre and all original characters are mine. Thanks to everyone who has been actively reading and reviewing! Sorry it took so long to update! Please review; I always like to know what my readers are thinking.**

**Time Won't Let Me Go**

**Part Six**

Logan went straight to Professor Xavier about the dreams, but he was a little hesitant about telling the Professor that he'd had some crazy-ass dreams about Jean, not with the slightly curious expression Emma Frost wore as she stood behind Professor Xavier. Logan didn't trust Emma Frost, and neither did Isabel. Isabel's reason was simple: no aura to be seen. Emma blocked it. Logan wasn't sure of Emma's motivations, either. Oh, yeah the woman could fight, all right-turn into a hard, shining diamond and even deflect adamantium blanks. But her costume…all a guy had to do was look at her and he would be taken off guard, and all Emma had to do was telepathically nudge some thoughts into a guy's brain and he was hers to command.

He waited until Emma had gone, and then he sat down in the chair in front of Professor Xavier's desk and watched as Charles regarded him benignly, yet with a brow furrowed in concern.

"You don't trust Emma Frost?" he asked Logan.

"No," Logan spat out honestly. "No, I don't, Chuck. There's somethin' about her I don't like. She's hidin' too much."

"One could almost say the same things about you," Charles cautioned Logan. "And there were quite a few people who were concerned when you began to take a liking to Isabel and Isabel to you."

"Were you included?" Logan asked him sarcastically.

Charles averted his eyes from Logan's and stared down at his desk. "What I think doesn't matter. Isabel has made her own decisions regardless of what any of us have thought, and she has learned from the consequences. Experience is how we learn, Logan, and we can't live without gaining experience." He backed his wheelchair away from his desk. "Nonetheless, Emma Frost can be trusted. I've made sure of it."

"Don't mean that I trust her," Logan muttered.

"No one ever said you had to," Charles said. "Now tell me about your dreams, Logan. Visiting Omaha Beach was a trigger?"

"Yeah." Logan licked his lips as he remembered. Blood, blood in the water, screams of agony, bodies lying still on the shore with red-tinged waves washing up over them… "The invasion. D-Day, Chuck. I was there."

He felt Charles probe his mind. It was like the cautious opening of a door into a room littered with all sorts of incongruous junk. With a gentle hand, Charles sorted it all as best as he could until he could find what he was looking for. And he left that part of Logan's mind in better order than originally, for which Logan was at least grateful.

"You were there," Charles said gravely, "and so was Victor Creed."

"Bullshit," Logan snarled, his hands gripping the arms of the chair he was sitting in, his claws threatening to emerge from their housings.

"I'm not lying to you," Charles told him calmly. "You and Victor Creed share much more of a connection than you believe. Maybe this is some of the reason behind your shared antipathy in past confrontations?"

"Don't go all Dr. Freud on me, Chuck. It don't become you," Logan snapped out.

Charles inclined his head. "I think," he said softly, "that we should conclude any more probes into your past for today. You will find all of your memories neatly arranged in your head-as neatly arranged as possible-and when you're ready, we'll go through them."

"But what about my dreams?" Logan asked Charles. "They can get pretty vivid, and you remember what happened with…with Rogue once."

"You think you'd do that to Isabel?" Charles said.

Logan nodded.

Charles's lips twitched into a wan smile. "I understand your fear, but remember that Isabel is much stronger than she appears. I don't think you'd hurt her."

Logan leaned forward in his chair, then rose. "Thanks, Chuck. You've helped me out a lot today."

And he left a quiet, contemplative Professor to himself.

* * *

Isabel was in bed grading papers when Logan opened the door and came in very unceremoniously, going into the bathroom for his spare toothbrush. She heard him brushing his teeth and then the water running, and he came out, turning out the light behind him. He shucked his sweatpants and t-shirt and sat down on the bed in only his boxers, folding the other clothing up neatly and placing it on the bottom shelf of the bedside table. Isabel didn't see any red or pink in his aura, so he clearly wasn't after sex tonight. His aura was gray, and he turned on the television and glared at the ten o'clock newscast glowing from the screen.

"You okay?" she asked him carefully, and the muscle in his jaw flexed and he reached to pet Violette, who had settled beside him.

"I will be," he replied. He glanced at her. "I just didn't feel like sleepin' alone tonight."

She leaned her head on his shoulder for a moment, and she felt his stiffened frame relax a bit. "Well, you've always got a place here," she said ironically.

Logan smiled wanly. "Thanks."

"How'd things go with the Professor?" Isabel asked him as she marked a typo with her purple pen.

"They went okay," Logan replied.

She wrinkled her brow, the skin prickling at the back of her neck as the slight hum of caution filled her ears.

Like drops of water in a great pool. Sometimes a drop was all it took, and then the ripples would emit from the drop landing, growing larger and larger…

Was it a signal of something?

Isabel shivered, and Logan, conscious of the motion, moved closer to her, putting his arm around her shoulders and almost curling himself around her as though to share his body heat. "You cold?" he asked her, and she glanced up at him, smiling, placing her hand on his forearm.

"It was just a little shiver," she explained, and he laughed a bit and settled back against his pillow, still holding her close. She finished the comments on the bottom of the term paper's last page. Logan turned off the television then, turning to face her.

"Chuck thinks there's a connection between Victor Creed and me," he told her succinctly. Isabel sat up a little bit, putting aside the last of the papers and stared at him askance.

"Between you and Sabertooth?" she said incredulously as soon as she could think of something to say. "Logan, that's ridiculous."

"It ain't ridiculous," Logan objected. "It's true."

Isabel watched Logan's aura change, from dark blue to black with the muddy brown and gray lights mingled in. She didn't know how to go about this, what to say to him. And yet this was the truth.

She was in love with a man who didn't know who the hell he was and could have been anything in his past, and now, no matter how intimidating he might seem, he was good. He might not follow all of the rules but he had a code, a code of honor that she might not always be able to see, but it was there, older than she was, engrained and forever a part of him.

"You're not like Victor Creed," she began slowly. "You don't do bad things just for the thrill of it. You don't hurt innocent people…not on purpose."

Logan relaxed, and he pulled her to him, holding her so close that she could feel the press of his bones against hers and his heartbeat against her own. She didn't know what was going through his head right now…and in a way she didn't want to know. All she knew was that it was a big mess, and that it had been for a very long time, and that Professor Xavier had only begun to pick up the pieces and put them in order.

She wanted to know who had done this to Logan, who had taken him apart and built him back up to be what _they_ had wanted, and then set him loose when they were done with him. This was a man who had been someone to so many people, and then who had perhaps vanished one day into thin air, with all memories of that previous life wiped away, waking up alone and cold in a forest not sure of who he was, just with a name…with one name…

Lost. Lost for a long time.

She stroked his hair, staring into those world-weary hazel eyes, into that face that bore no signs of age, but certainly signs of care, and she leaned forward and kissed him. He must have been taken aback at her kiss, but he soon returned it, tangling his own hands in her hair, cupping her breasts in his hands as her own hands roamed over him. She listened to the sharp intakes of breath, the groans, and the growls as she kissed every inch of him, and she shivered at the contrast between his mouth and the air as he whisked her t-shirt off so that he could kiss her front, and then the same with her pajama pants and underwear.

It was different this time, solemn, not playful and full of laughter or rough and like a primal coupling or even romantic with the endless I love yous. There was something deeper about this, as he sat in the middle of the bed with the light of the full moon shining upon him, as he held out his arms to her. She went to him, and he inhaled sharply and she gasped when she took him into her, but then after…then after…

She saw-or rather_ saw_-in her mind's eye how it could be, how difficult it would be with him yet how happy she would be, how happy _he_ would be. Flashes of things, of Christmases in France and summers on Lake Michigan in Chicago or swimming in the pool here. She saw the ring, she saw the small wedding, she saw the children and heard the words _Mommy_ and _We made a baby, darlin'_. She saw the battles, she saw the suffering, she saw the loss. She saw Jean and the question on Jean's lips: _Why did you let them leave me behind?_

And then the little girl's name.

She called for Veronica.

_Veronica._

The baby she had lost.

_I'm sorry, Mommy. I wasn't ready yet. It wasn't time for me to come yet. You understand, don't you, Mommy?_

She kissed Logan as she came, and she tasted the salt of tears. She didn't know whose they were, and she didn't care.

He growled out as he came, biting her on the shoulder but not so hard to break the skin, and he buried his face into her neck for a moment as he caught his breath.

"Christ, Isabel!" he exclaimed as she withdrew from him and lie down. "What was that?"

"I don't know," she said.

He reached across her for the bottles of water she kept on her bedside table, and he opened one and chugged from it, then handed it to her. She drank some, too, watching him as he lie down beside her and scrubbed his hand across his face. He stared up at the ceiling for a moment, then turned his head so that he was facing her.

"I saw it. All of it. Whatever it was you saw."

She remained silent. She closed her eyes and waited for him to say more.

"The baby, Isabel…I heard her. Veronica. She's…she's gonna be mine."

There was such disbelief in his voice, as though he were trying to process it, as though he didn't understand.

"Did it scare you?" she asked him.

He seemed to be thinking for a moment. "What was it?'

She swallowed. "I think it was my Fae blood. I think when we were…when we were together, something kicked in, and we saw…we _saw_…"

"What could be. What's gonna be." He shrugged. "I don't know who I was or all the places I've been, but I know where I'm going and who I'm gonna be…" He shook his head. "This is crazy. My life is one big fucked-up mess. And then I meet you, and then it all seems to wanna straighten itself out…"

He reached for his boxers and pulled open the drawer in the bedside table that held a package of cigars and a lighter. "I need a smoke," he mumbled, and he went outside on the balcony, closing the door behind him so that the cigar smoke wouldn't billow in.

Isabel went and put her pajamas back on, and when she lie back down, she carefully laid her hand on her abdomen.

Her baby.

She hadn't really lost this baby…she was just _waiting_ for this baby. Because the baby deserved to come at a better time, with a father who would take care of her and love her and do his best to be there for her.

She listened as Logan came back in and went to wash his hands and brush his teeth once more to get rid of the cigar breath, and then he climbed back into bed beside her. He reached for her, and she moved closer to him. She felt his fingertips on her cheekbones, and he said to her, very quietly, "You think I'd be a good dad?"

She opened her eyes and tousled his thick, dark hair. "Of course I do."

"Of course you would." He closed his eyes. "Bells?"

"Yeah?"

"Chuck put some of it in order…the memories."

"That's good." She felt him shift a little bit, and then Violette jumped back onto the bed and settled in between them, and Logan reached to pet the dog. She felt the tears prick her eyes again, and she mustered, "I love you, Logan."

"I know. I love you, too." His voice grew thick as sleep settled over him. "Good night, darlin'."

* * *

Erik Lensherr had always loved Paris, particularly after the war, and he was pleased at how he was able to live here again, how the French government was more or less offering him amnesty and now allowing the United States to extradite him. He lived the life of a retired intellectual, visiting the libraries and the historical sites, taking the bus out to Fontainebleau and the train down to visit Montségur, all with his young daughter, Lorna Dane-Lensherr, in tow. Lorna had been thrilled when he offered her the chance to study art history at the Sorbonne, and so he rented a flat in Paris and flew her in to live with him. It was the least he could do; he had, after all, almost neglected his other two children. Why not make up for his shortcomings with the youngest?

And so one afternoon in early April, Erik Magnus Lensherr sat in a café on the Rue de Rivoli, drinking coffee and rereading _Les Jeux Sont Faits._

He didn't notice the man who approached him. But when the man said his name, he snapped the book shut.

"I wanted to tell you," Erik said over the line as it crackled for the third time while he tried to keep his magnetic powers in check, "that I saw him here, in Paris. He is alive and well, Charles."

Charles's end was silent. Erik could tell that Charles was deliberating, and then his old friend said, "You're certain that it was him? He's been declared dead for over twenty years."

"Yes, it was him," Erik insisted. "And he gave me some information that you may be interested in."

"And what sort of information is that?" Charles wondered.

Erik waited for a moment and then he replied, very quietly, "He told me about a laboratory that he used to have in Canada, and that he would perform experiments on mutants there. He mentioned Stryker's name in passing, but there are other names that concern me."

"Whose names?" Charles seemed concerned now.

Erik sat down and inhaled deeply. "He has been party to many experiments on mutants, but he mentioned two things in particular: the laboratory that you and I found years ago, and an indirect involvement with an adamantium bonding project. He wants to begin experimenting again."

A tremble in Charles's voice. "What else did he say"

"He says that he has Jean Grey and another mutant in stasis."

"Good God," was all Charles could say.

* * *

"Magneto seeks the protection of the Fae," Charles told Isabel as they sat in his study during the following evening.

Isabel seemed preoccupied, and she was biting at her artificial nails. "Why?" she said.

"Erik has come across some information that he gave directly to me, and he got it from someone who may be a threat not only to him, but more so to his daughter."

"Lorna Dane?"

"Now Lorna Dane-Lensherr."

"Well, what a good father he is!" Isabel said ironically.

Charles gave her a pointed look. "Nonetheless, Lorna Dane and Erik's other children are innocents in this, as are the other mutants whom this man holds captive"

Isabel sighed. "I'll call my grandmother later tonight," she said, yawning. "I'll set the alarm for four in the morning."

"Thank you," Charles said, and as Isabel got up to leave, she stopped at the door.

"Professor," she said suddenly, "who is the man who may be a threat to Magneto?"

Charles's eyes flicked away, and then he met her gaze again. "His name is Nathaniel Essex."


End file.
